The category of person

In the Indo-European languages the category of person serves to present an action as associated by the speaking person with himself/herself (or group of persons including the speaker), the person or persons addressed, and the person or thing (persons or things) not participating in the process of speech. Thus, in Ukrainian it is represented in sets of three-member opposemes such as:

читаю – читаєш – читає читаємо – читаєте – читають.

Likewise in Modern German we have: gehe – gehst – geht gehen – geht – gehen.

In Modern English the category of person has certain peculiarities:

1. The second member of the opposemes speak – speakest – speaks, am – is – are is not used colloquially. It occurs in Modern English only in poetry, in solemn or pathetic prose with a distinct archaic flavour. Thus, the category of person is practically represented by two-member opposemes: speak – speaks, am – is.

2. Person opposemes are neutralized when associated with the “plural” meaning. A.I.Smirnitsky thinks that owing to the presence of the plural personal pronouns (we, you, they) person distinctions are felt in the plural of the verb as well, e.g.: we know – you know – they know.

The idea is open to criticism. If the verb itself (in the plural) does not show any person distinctions we are bound to admit that in Modern English the verb in plural has no person characteristics.

3. Person distinctions do not go with the meaning of the “past tense” in the English verbs, e.g.: I (he) asked … (compare the Ukrainian, e.g.: я (ти, він) спитав – вона спитала, воно спитало, вони спитали) [24; 148–149].

In Ukrainian the category of person is closely connected with the category of person of pronouns. Its meaning is based on the opposition of six interconnected forms: 1, 2, 3 persons singular and 1, 2, 3 persons plural (я читаю – ми читаємо, etc.).

In Ukrainian personal forms – are one of main morphological characteristics of the verb: “due to their ability to point out the person as the doer or the source with which the action or the state is connected, these verb forms always perform the function of predicate in the sentence [5; 70].”

Almost all personal forms of Ukrainian verbs (except forms of the past tense and conditional mood) have personal endings of the first, second and third persons of singular and plural. These endings create the system of verb forms: пиш-у, -еш, -е, -емо, -ете, -уть; чита-ю, -єш, -є, -ємо, -єте, -ють; крич-у, -иш, -ить, -имо, -ите, -ать; сто-ю, -їш, -їть, -їмо, -їте, -ять.

According to Yu.O. Zhluktenko [5; 70], unlike the Ukrainian language in English the category of person has only one formal expression, that is only in the third person singular of the Present Indefinite tense, where the ending - s is added to the verb stem, e.g.: he writes. This verb form is opposed to all other forms which do not have personal endings and so do not express the category of person. Besides, there are several verbs (can, may, must, ought, sometimes also need and dare) which do not have even this ending, and are not conjugated according to the person altogether.

In Ukrainian the forms of the past tense and conditional mood do not express the category of person. The meaning of person is rendered by these verbs by lexical means, by usage of the corresponding personal pronouns, e.g.: я знав, ти знав, він знав, ми знали, ви знали; я знав би, ти знав би, ми знали б, ви знали б.

In English forms of the past tense of verbs also do not have some special characteristics. In future tense forms there has been retained the difference of the first person from forms of the second and the third persons in singular and in plural: I (we) shall write; he (you, they) will write. Correspondingly, this difference is brought upon the forms of the conditional mood with help verbs should and would. But in the speech this difference is also lost due to the fact that help verbs shall and will are shortened into one auxiliary element ’ ll (I’ll help, he’ll write), and should and would is shortened to ’ d (’d (h’d) like to see him).

The function of person expression in the system of English verb has come over to the subject (as a main part of a sentence) to a large extent: in the first and second person this function is performed by a pronoun, and in the third person – both by the pronoun and by the noun. That is why in English the verb form is not practically used without a subject (except the imperative mood), e.g. when we have the question What does he do? we cannot answer simply * reads or * sleeps, we should necessarily say: he reads or he sleeps (compare in Ukrainian: Що він робить? – Спить.).

In Ukrainian personal verb forms are much more independent. They are very often used without the subject, at this the meaning of the personal verb form is not changed, e.g.: За всіх скажу, за всіх переболію … (П. Тичина).

In these cases the person, having the connection with the action, can be clarified from the context. When this form cannot be clarified then the form of the third person plural acquires the meaning of the non-personal or indefinite-personal, e.g.: У нас встають рано. Also the second person singular without the verb acquires the generalized-personal meaning: Без науки не обійдешся [5; 70–71].

Impersonal verbs (безособові дієслова). In English and in Ukrainian there is a group of the so-called impersonal verbs, which, though can be used in the sentence in the personal form, “denote the action or the state not connected with any doer or source of their revealing”, the action which is as though happening by itself.

In Ukrainian such verbs are used in the present and the future tense in the form of the third person singular, which is the least connected with defining of some person – the doer, e.g.: вечоріє, світатиме. In the past tense they have the form of the third person singular, neuter gender: світало, смеркало. Also these verbs can be used in the form of the infinitive, which altogether denotes the action or the state beyond any connection with the person, e.g.: починало вечоріти. So these verbs are not conjugated according to the person altogether.

In English impersonal verbs are also always used in the third person singular, e.g.: it rains, it is snowing or in the form of the infinitive: it began to rain.

Ukrainian impersonal verbs are never used with the subject, whereas English verbs of such a type are necessarily used with the formal subject, expressed by the pronoun it.

Ukrainian impersonal verbs are much more numerous than English ones. They include a bigger number of different semantic groups. For example, here belong the verbs, having the following meanings:

1) natural phenomena: морозить, похолодало, світає, вигоріло, вибило (градом);

2) some notions concerning the destiny, chance or independence of events from the person: пощастило, не щастить, не вистачило;

3) physical senses: нудить, трясе, пече, коле;

4) emotional states or the general state of the person: гнітить, не терпиться, не спиться, добре працювалося and others.

English impersonal verbs include only such verbs that denote nature phenomena: it rains “іде дощ”, it snows “іде сніг”, it was freezing “морозило”, it is getting dark “стає темно” and others.

Alongside with such verbs that are used only in impersonal meaning in both languages there are verbs that can be met in the personal and in the impersonal meaning: голка коле, в боці коле; in English: I am getting home – it is getting cold.

In Ukrainian impersonal verbs can be created from personal ones with the help of the reflexive affix - ся: спить – спиться, оре – ореться, сіє – сіється, живе – живеться and others. This way of formation is very productive, but in English there is no similar ways of formation of impersonal verbs [5; 71–72].