Person marking

Abstract

This chapter investigates patterns of verbal and nominal person marking in Uralic languages. Person is combined with number: there are three persons in singular and plural, in some languages also in dual. Person marking on finite verbs (in many Uralic languages, in case of negation it is placed on the negative auxiliary verb) is used in subject agreement, and in Mordvin, Ugric, and Samoyedic there exists an additional paradigm for object agreement (aka objective conjugation). Adnominal person markers, traditionally known as possessive suffixes, can encode possessor person but also a variety of features connected with referentiality or definiteness. With non-finite verbs they mark subject agreement in dependent clauses. The functions, uses and productivity of possessive suffixes vary greatly within Uralic.