Part 2: Verbs
First/Second/Third Person Pronouns & Perspective
Definition
The first person grammatically is I (singular) or we (plural), plus their related pronouns and determiners (me, my, us, our, etc.). When a clause is in the first person, it is written from my or our perspective.
The second person is you, which is both singular and plural in English (but not all languages). When a clause is in the second person, it is written from your perspective.
There are several forms of the third person: he/him/his, she/her/hers, it/its, and they/them. If the subject of a clause is a noun or name, it is in the third person (e.g., insects have six legs; the bus leaves in 10 minutes). Clauses in the third person are written from an outside perspective: not me or you, but some other person, people, thing, or things.* For this reason, the third person is sometimes considered impersonal and is a hallmark of academic texts.
Generally, the subject of the verb determines the “person” of the clause. For example:
It is impossible to determine the result. (It = third person)
I want you to go to the prom with me. (I = first person)
Franklin Roosevelt was the US president during WWII. (FDR = third person)
(*There is one exception, which we might call the Elmo exception, when you refer to yourself in the third person. In TV’s Sesame Street, the muppet Elmo, who is permanently five years old, refers to himself by his own name, e.g. “Elmo likes apples.”)
Discovery
Please read this excerpt from an open-access psychology textbook, specifically from an introduction to behavioral economics:
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For example, a traditional economist would say that if you lost a $10 bill today, and also received an extra $10 in your paycheck, you should feel perfectly neutral. You are the same financially as you were before. However, behavioral economists have conducted research that shows many people will feel some negative emotion, such as anger or frustration, after those two things happen. We tend to focus more on the loss than the gain. We call this loss aversion, where a $1 loss pains us 2.25 times more than a $1 gain helps us. This insight has implications for investing, as people tend to “overplay” the stock market by reacting more to losses than to gains. This behavior looks irrational to traditional economists, but is consistent once we understand better how the mind works, these economists argue. |
Identify some examples of first, second, and third person clauses. This text is tricky because the writer uses we with different meanings. Can you identify two uses of we with different meanings? Why do you think the writers chose “people tend to overplay the stock market” rather than “you tend to overplay the stock market”?
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Form
This is a good opportunity to review the system of pronouns in English:
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Singular |
Plural |
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Subject pronouns |
I, you, he, she, it, they |
we, you, they |
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Object pronouns |
me, you, him, her, it, them |
us, you, them |
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Possessive pronouns |
mine, yours, his, hers, theirs |
ours, yours, theirs |
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Reflexive pronouns |
myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, themself |
ourselves, yourselves, themselves |
Subject pronouns function as the subjects of verbs.
Object pronouns function as direct and indirect objects: that is, they are used after verbs and prepositions:
I saw him.
Give me your phone.
The teacher spoke to them.
Possessive pronouns indicate ownership:
That book is mine.
The fault is yours.
Possessive pronouns should not be confused with possessive determiners, which are used as part of a noun group (they are followed by a noun):
My bag is heavier than yours. (My is a determiner because it modifies “bad”; yours is a pronoun because it replaces “bag”)
Reflexive pronouns are less frequent. They are used to repeat the subject later in a clause:
Angelica hurt herself. (herself = Angelica)
In some classes, students grade themselves. (themselves = students)
Careful!
You’ll notice in the table above that I have listed they/them and you/your as both singular and plural. This is not a mistake! Singular they is used in contemporary English in two contexts: to refer to a person in general without specifying gender (there’s someone at the door; they look sick); and to refer to non-binary people and people who use different pronouns in different contexts (Jan is here for their appointment; they are waiting in the lobby). The use of they as either singular or plural is fully grammatical and has been at least since the time of Shakespeare.
Historically, English had different forms of the second person: thou/thee/thy was used in the singular when talking to someone familiar (e.g. a family member) or of a lower social class. You was the plural form but was also used to speak to someone with higher social status. This distinction is retained in many other languages (e.g., tu/vous in French, tu/usted in some varieties of Spanish, du/Sie in German, etc.). Since thou fell out of use by the end of 19th-century, you covers both singular and plural. In this way, it is similar to the singular/plural use of they.
Both you/they use plural verb forms even when they have singular meanings (they are, you are; not *they is or *you is).
Function
In speaking, the choice of pronouns is usually straightforward since you are either talking about yourself or other people. It would be strange to refer to yourself in anything other than the first person. In writing, however, a choice can often be made. Or, put another way, you can often make a choice. The last two sentences have the same content (experiential meaning) but a different effect because the former is in the third person (the subject is a choice) and the latter is in the second person, directly addressing you, the reader.
In fiction and biographical writing (Narrate), the writer has to make an important decision between using the first and third person. For example:
“We didn’t always live on Mango Street. Before that, we lived on Loomis on the third floor, and before that, on Keeler … But what I remember most is moving a lot.” (Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street – first-person narrative)
“The first rabbit stopped in a sunny patch and scratched his ear with rapid movements of his hind legs.” (Richard Adams, Watership Down – third-person narrative)
Other novels shift perspectives, even incorporating the second-person, perhaps drawing the reader into the story. For example, Jerry Spinelli’s novel Maniac Magee is mostly written in the third person but opens with an unnumbered chapter headed “Before the Story”:
“They say Maniac Magee was born in a dump. … They say if you knew he was coming and you sprinkled salt on the going and he ran over it. Within two or three blocks, he would be as slow as everyone else.
They say.
What’s true? What’s myth? It’s hard to know.
Finsterwald’s gone now, yet even today you’ll never find a kid sitting on the steps where he once lived.” (emphasis added)
Second-person narrative is extremely rare but is accomplished by N.K. Jemisin in certain chapters of her award-winning sci-fi novel, The Fifth Season (2015):
“For the past ten years, you’ve lived as ordinary a life as possible. You came to Tirimo from elsewhere; the townsfolk don’t really care where or why. Since you were obviously well-educated, you became a teacher at the local creche …”
Texts that Explain such as instructions, recipes, or processes might use second person to provide clear directions (you add one teaspoon of milk to the mixture). Generally, though, most school writing assignments, especially those that Inform or Argue (ie. expository writing) encourage or require the use of third-person. It’s important to emphasize that there is nothing inherently informal or inappropriate about using first-person perspective in academic writing. In fact, textbooks, journals, and academic books often use I or we (if there are multiple authors).
Exercises
Additional practice:
- Look on your bookshelves or in your school or local library. Choose a novel, a non-fiction book, a cookbook, and a book for children. What do you notice about the perspective and pronouns in these books?
- Take one of the extracts on this page, or a short section from a text you are reading or teaching now. Change the perspective (e.g. from third-person to first or second-person). What is the effect of this change on you as a reader?
