Personverb

Personverb is a term used in linguistics to describe a verb form that encodes the grammatical person of its subject. In languages with subject–verb agreement, the person information is carried directly by the verb through affixes or stem changes, reducing the need to rely on explicit subject pronouns.

The label is descriptive rather than prescriptive. It highlights a typological feature in which the verb bears person markings—first, second, or third person—and often includes number distinctions as well. Morphological strategies include prefixes, infixes, suffixes, or changes to the verb root. Personverbal systems can vary in how tightly they couple person marking with tense, aspect, or mood.

Examples help illustrate the concept. Spanish provides a typical case of personagreement: hablo, hablas, habla, hablamos, habláis, hablan. English marks person mainly through the third-person singular on the main present-tense form: I speak, you speak, he speaks, we speak, you speak, they speak. In pro-drop languages, subject pronouns may be omitted, with the verb form alone signaling person. Other languages may fuse person marking with tense or aspect, while some keep these categories separate.

Relation to related concepts includes subject–verb agreement, concord, and pronominal affixes. The term personverb is commonly used in typological descriptions and language documentation to describe how a language’s verbs encode information about the subject’s person.