"First Person Plural" redirects here.

For the book by Cameron West, see First Person Plural: My Life As A Multiple.
For other uses, see Narrative mode.

In Romance languages such as Spanish, the grammatical person affects the verb conjugation.
In this image, each row represents person and number: 1st person, 2nd person informal and 2nd person formal and 3rd person.
Columns represent tense (image: morning - past, noon - present, night - future).

Grammatical person, in linguistics, is the grammatical distinction between deictic references to participant(s) in an
event; typically the distinction is between the speaker, the addressee, and others. Grammatical person typically
defines a language's set of personal pronouns. It also frequently affects verbs, sometimes nouns,
and possessive relationships.

Grammatical person in nominative case English pronouns

Pronoun

Person/plurality

Gender

Standard

First person singular

We

First person plural

You

Second person singular / second person plural

He

Third person masculine singular

masculine

She

Third person feminine singular

feminine

It

Third person neuter singular

neuter

They

Third person plural / third person gender-neutral singular

Colloquial

Youse

Second person plural, dialect Scouse, Australian English, Scottish English, Irish
English.

Ye

Second person plural, dialectal Hiberno-English

You guys Second person plural, dialectal American English and Canadian English

Y'all

Second person plural, dialectal Southern American and African American English

Yinz

Second person plural, dialectal Scottish English, Pittsburgh English

Archaic

Thou

Second person singular, archaic

Ye

Second person plural, archaic

Additional persons
In Indo-European languages, first-, second-, and third-person pronouns are typically also marked
for singular and plural forms, and sometimes dual form as well (grammatical number). Some languages, especially
European ones, distinguish degrees of formality and informality (T-V distinction).
Some other languages use different classifying systems, especially in the plural pronouns. One frequently found
difference not present in most Indo-European languages is a contrast between inclusive and exclusive "we": a
distinction of first-person plural pronouns between including or excluding the addressee.
Some other languages have much more elaborate systems of formality that go well beyond the T-V distinction, and
use many different pronouns and verb forms that express the speaker's relationship with the people they are
addressing. Many Malayo-Polynesian languages, such as Javanese andBalinese, are well known for their complex
systems of honorifics; Japanese and Korean also have similar systems to a lesser extent.
In many languages, the verb takes a form dependent on this person and whether it is singular or plural. In English,
this happens with the verb to be as follows:

I am (first-person singular)

you are/thou art (second-person singular)

he, she, one or it is (third-person singular)

we are (first-person plural)

you are/ye are (second-person plural)

they are (third-person plural)

The grammars of some languages divide the semantic space into more than three persons. The extra categories
may be termed fourth person, fifth person, etc. Such terms are not absolute but can refer depending on context to
any of several phenomena.
Some languages, including among Algonquian languages and Salishan languages, divide the category of third
person into two parts: proximate for a more topical third person, and obviative for a less topical third person. The
obviative is sometimes called the fourth person.
The term fourth person is also sometimes used for the category of indefinite or generic referents, that works
like one in English phrases such as "one should be prepared" or peoplein people say that..., when the grammar
treats them differently from ordinary third-person forms. [citation needed] The so-called "zero person"[1][2] in Finnish and
related languages, in addition to passive voice may serve to leave the subject-referent open. Zero person subjects
are sometimes translated as "one," but the problem with that is that English language constructions involving one,
e.g. "One hopes that will not happen," are rare and could be considered to be expressing an overly academic tone,
while Finnish sentences like "Ei saa koskettaa" ("0 cannot touch") are recognizable to, and even used by, young
children.

Third person (or third-person) may refer to:

A grammatical person, he, she, it, and they in the English language

Third-person narrative, a perspective in plays, storytelling, or movies

Third-person view, a point of view shot in film, television and video games by having the viewpoint
outside any of the actors

Third-person shooter, a genre of 3D video games in which the onscreen character is seen at a
distance from one or more possible angles

To refer to oneself in the third person is illeism

Third Person, musical trio