Лекции по теоретической грамматике английского языка для студентов

3. The Category of Person 
As it can be seen, in Russian person is fully grammaticalized in the present 
tense; grammatically, the personal pronouns are redundant: they merely reduplicate 
the person information contained in the verb form.
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. 
The verb 
be
is more grammaticalized in this respect: it takes an exception to 
the other verbs.
As can be seen, it has two grammaticalized persons in the singular – first and third 
person – and no grammaticalized persons in the plural. In the past tense, the verb 
be
does not distinguish person – without a personal pronoun we cannot say which 
person the form expresses.
To sum up, the category of person is represented in English by the two-
member opposition: 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 opposition is privative both in the plane of content and in 
the plane of expression.

---

37
4. 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.
Some verbs – modals – do not distinguish number at all. Still others are only 
used in the plural because the meaning of ‘oneness’ is hardly compatible with their 
lexical: 
The boys crowded round him. vs. 
*The boy crowded round him. 
The soldiers regrouped and opened fire. vs. 
*The soldier regrouped and opened fire. 
The analysis of the examples demonstrates the weakness of the English verb 
as concerns the expression of person and number and its heavy reliance on the 
subject: it is the subject that is generally responsible for the expression of person 
and number in English. 
The forms of the type 
livest, takest, livedst, tookest
stand outside the 
grammatical system. They are associated with the personal pronoun 
thou
and are 
only used in religious and occasionally in poetical texts and among Quakers. With 
these forms the category of number appears within the category of the 2nd person 
and the whole system of person and number (including the past tense) must be 
presented in a different shape. 

---

38