3 • Personal Affixes, Reciprocal and Reflexive
abstract
HA makes a distinction among first, second, third, and fourth person, while SA only distinguishes first, second, and third person. The term ‘fourth person’ is actually an improper term since it could be easily misunderstood as referring to the obviative person in a directinverse alignment. Tamura (2000) prefers to discuss it as ‘indefinite person’. However, since referencing to an indefinite agent is only one of the functions of fourth person, this latter term has found its place in Ainu studies and it continues to be widely employed.