If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website.

Եթե գտնվում ես վեբ զտիչի հետևում, խնդրում ենք համոզվել, որ *.kastatic.org և *.kasandbox.org տիրույթները հանված են արգելափակումից։

Հիմնական նյութ

Grammatical person and pronouns

There's this idea in grammar called grammatical person that helps describe who's being talked about in a sentence. David, KA's Grammar Fellow, explains.

Ուզո՞ւմ ես միանալ խոսակցությանը։

Առայժմ հրապարակումներ չկան։
Անգլերեն հասկանո՞ւմ ես: Սեղմիր այստեղ և ավելի շատ քննարկումներ կգտնես «Քան» ակադեմիայի անգլերեն կայքում:

Տեսանյութի սղագրությունը

serious question grammarian so what's the difference between me and you well in order to get I mean I don't mean that you know in a Starkey way I mean that in like a conceptual way what's the difference in terms of these two pronouns what separates them well one's about me and one's about you but that seems kind of like a pretty easy distinction it's right there on the face of it right English like other languages has this thing that grammarians call person obviously we all know what a person is it's a human being but person as a grammatical concept is a way of distinguishing between me you and everybody else in fact we we have special terms for this so any group containing me is the first person any group containing you is the second person and everybody else falls into the third person so whenever I talk about you know third person singular or first person plural all I'm really doing is going back to these columns of am i involved are you involved or is everybody else involved right so both me and us or I and we are first-person pronouns because they're about me or a group that contains me likewise you is the second person that's that's kind of in singular and plural everybody else that's he/she they've everybody it nothing everything that is neither me nor you falls into the everybody else third person category so let's say you were giving someone advice in a kind of the sideways way like one ought not to place one's hands on a hot stove the the temptation might be in some cases you might forget what pronoun you started out with one is a third person pronoun and and the temptation might sometimes be you know you forget about it it sounds like you're saying a piece of advice one ought not to place your hands on a hot stove well you know I mean this is still not a good idea to put your hands on a hot stove but you have to remember which what you're what you're trying to connect here this is a third person pronoun and this is a second person pronoun and the two of them do not match up they do not as we say in grammar agree sadface so what you need to take care to do is to make sure that if you're tough you start off talking about one even if you're being kind of silly and pompous you got to stick with one if you start out talking about you you got a stick with you or I guess I could have changed this back to one but I want to pop with the with the pink because if you don't do this then you run the risk of being confusing and unclear so if to make sure that if you start off using one grammatical person you have to maintain use of that grammatical person for as long as you're talking about the same the same notion the same idea the same person I used to take harmony singing classes at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago and I had this instructor who said that the best way to sing harmony was to remember to stay in your lane and I think that's a that's a good way to conceive of how to think about grammatical person is if you start in one lane don't cross over by the end of the sentence begin begin your sentence in the same Lane as you started you can learn anything Dave it out