The three deictic categories, or persons, are, as a rule, lexicalized in languages, i.e. special words are used. These words are called personal pronouns.
In a communicative act, third person pronouns can be deictic and non-deictic (anaphoric).
Eg. John got home late and he was very tired (he is anaphoric). vs. John looked up when he came in (with he bearing heavy stress) (he is deictic). If third person pronouns are deictic, there will usually be some accompanying paralinguistic feature: a nod of the head, a gesture with the hand, etc. I go-we go
In English, only the third person present tense singular form expresses person grammatically; therefore, the verb forms are obligatorily associated with personal pronouns.
Special mention should be made of the modal verbs and the verb be. Modal verbs, with the exception of shall/should and will/would, do not show person grammatically.
Eg I can speak English
I shall speak English
You can speak English
You will speak English
He, she can speak English
He, she will speak English
To sum up, the category of person is represented in English by two member oppositions: third person singular vs. non-third person singular. The marked member of the opposition is third person; the unmarked member is non-third person (it includes the remaining forms - first person, second person forms -singular and plural).
The Category of Number
The category of number shows whether the process is associated with one doer or with more than one doer, e.g. He eats three times a day. The sentence indicates a single eater; the verb is in the singular despite the fact than more than one process is meant. The category of number is a two-member opposition: singular and plural. An interesting feature of this category is the fact that it is blended with person: number and person make use of the same morpheme.
As person is a feature of the present tense, number is also restricted to the present tense.
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
