The correct use of person markers in a language requires knowledge not only of the existing person forms and the syntactic and discourse-pragmatic rules governing their distribution but crucially also of the social relations obtaining between the speech-act participants and the third parties that they invoke. As formulated by Mühlhäusler and Harré (1990:207), “pronominal grammar provides a window to the relationship between selves and the outside world”.

In much of the earlier research on the social factors underlying variation in the use of person markers, particularly that inspired by the seminal work of Brown and Gilman (1960), the relationship between speaker and addressee (and/or other) was analysed in terms of the dimensions of power (or status) and solidarity (intimacy). The claim was that in asymmetrical relationships the more powerful of the two interlocutors uses a non-deferential t person marker and receives, in return, the deferential v form. In symmetrical relationships, reciprocal forms of address are used; in the higher echelons often v forms, in the lower typically t forms. This, however, also depends on whether speakers wish to express solidarity with their addressees (because of common sex, age, profession, city or region of origin, etc.) in which case they will use t forms, or conversely seek to stress their lack of solidarity, which will result in the use of v forms. Subsequent investigations have revealed that the use of just the two dimensions, power and solidarity, to characterize correct social usage of person forms is not enough.