English

Adjective

monopersonal ‎(not comparable)

1. (grammar) Having only one grammatical person.

Translations

Related terms

• impersonal verb

References

• 2000, G. E. Booij, Christian Lehmann, Joachim Mugdan, Morphology, Walter de Gruyter, page 650:

  Grammars of several languages traditionally list a subcategory of monopersonal verbs that occur only in the third-person but not in the first or second. Some such verbs do not even occur in the third-person plural. For instance, Finnish has several subtypes of monopersonal verbs, here all listed in the third person singular (marked by lenghthening of the stem-vowel): (a) modal verbs such as pitä-ä 'must', täyty-y 'must', kannatta-a 'is worth', kelpa-a 'be suitable, be fitting, do'; (b) morphologically derived causatives (with the suffix -tutta or -tta) expressing various physiological or mental states, such as aivastutta-a 'be about to sneeze, make somebody sneeze', heikotta-a 'feel weak, make somebody feel week', kadutta-a 'regret, make to feel sorry for'; (c) meterological and equivalent verbs such as sata-a 'rain', myrskyä-ä 'storm', liplattele-e 'splash [of waves]'. The verbs in (a) occur only in the third person singular, those in (c) also do not have the so-called passive forms with the suffix -ta/-tä and the person marker -Vn, actually expressing an indefinite agent ("fourth person"), hypothetically *sade-ta-an 'one rains', *liplatel-la-an 'one splashes', *kadute-ta-an 'one is made to feel regret'.