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second and third persons together (expressing, respectively, mere future and modal future). These distinctions,
which will be described at more length further on, are characteristic only of British English.
A trace of person distinction is presented in the past tense with the archaic form of the second person
singular. The form is used but very occasionally, still it goes with the pronoun thou, being obligatory with it.
Here is an example of its individualizing occurrence taken from E. Hemingway:
Thyself and thy horses. Until thou hadst horses thou wert with us. Now thou art another capitalist more.
Thus, the peculiarity of the archaic past tense person-conjugation is that its only marked form is not the third
person as in the present tense, nor the first person as in the British future tense, but the second person. This is
what might be called "little whims of grammar"!
§ 3. Passing on to the expression of grammatical number by the English finite verb, we are faced with the
interesting fact that, from the formally morphemic point of view, it is hardly featured at all.
As a matter of fact, the more or less distinct morphemic featuring of the category of number can be seen
only with the archaic forms of the unique be, both in the present tense and in the past tense. But even with this
verb the featuring cannot be called quite explicit, since the opposition of the category consists in the unmarked
plural form for all the persons being contrasted against the marked singular form for each separate person, each
singular person thereby being distinguished by its own, specific form. It means that the expressions of person
and number by the archaic conjugation of be in terms of the lexeme as a whole are formally not strictly sepa-
rated from each other, each singular mark conveying at once a double grammatical sense, both of person and
number. Cf:. am-are; art - are; was (the first and the third persons, i.e. non-second person)-were; wast (second
person)-were.
In the common conjugation of be, the blending of the person and number forms is more profound, since the
suppletive are, the same as its past tense counterpart were, not being confined to the plural sphere, penetrate the
singular sphere, namely, the expression of the second person (which actually becomes non-expression because
of the formal coincidence).
As for the rest of the verbs, the blending of the morphemic expression of the two categories is complete, for
the only explicit morphemic opposition in the integral categorial sphere of person and number is reduced with
these verbs to the third person singular (present tense, indicative mood) being contrasted against the unmarked
finite form of the verb.
§ 4. The treatment of the analysed categories on a formal basis, though fairly consistent in the technical
sense, is, however, lacking an explicit functional appraisal. To fill the gap, we must take into due account not
only the meaningful aspect of the described verbal forms in terms of their reference to the person-number
forms of the subject, but also the functional content of the subject-substantival categories of person and number
themselves.
The semantic core of the substantival (or pronominal, for that matter) category of person is understood
nowadays in terms of deictic, or indicative signification.
The deictic function of lingual units, which has come under careful linguistic investigation of late, consists
not in their expressing self-dependent and self-sufficient elements of meaning, but in pointing out entities of
reality in their spatial and temporal relation to the participants of speech communication. In this light, the
semantic content of the first person is the indication of the person who is speaking, but such an indication as is
effected by no other individual than himself. This self-indicative role is performed lexically by the personal
pronoun. The semantic content of the second person is the indication of the individual who is listening to the
first person speaking - but again such an indication as viewed and effected by the speaker. This listener-
indicative function is performed by the personal pronoun you. Now, the semantic content of the third person is
quite different from that of either the first or second person. Whereas the latter two express the immediate
participants of the communication, the third person indicates all the other entities of reality, i.e. beings, things,
and phenomena not immediately included in the communicative situation, though also as viewed by the
speaker, at the moment of speech. This latter kind of indication may be effected in the two alternative ways.
The first is a direct one, by using words of a full-meaning function, either proper, or common, with the
corresponding specifications achieved with the help of indicators-determiners (articles and pronominal words
of diverse linguistic standings). The second is an oblique one, by using the personal pronouns he, she, or it, de-
pending on the gender properties of the referents. It is the second way, i.e. the personal pronominal indication
of the third person ref-erent, that immediately answers the essence .of the grammatical category of person as
such, i.e. the three-stage location of the referent in relation to the speaker: first, the speaker himself; second, his
listener; third, the non-participant of the communication, be it a human non-participant or otherwise.