The Pronoun

OE pronoun:

There are several types of pronouns in OE: personal, possessive, demonstrative, interrogative, definite, indefinite, negative and relative.

Personal: besides singular and plural there also dual pronoun s for the 1^st and 2 persons. They had 3 persons, 3 numbers (in the 1^st and 2^nd person) and 3 genders in the 3d person. The pronouns of the 1^st and 2^nd person had suppletive forms: Ic, min, me, me, mic; thu, thin, the, the, thec; When used with the pronoun ‘self’ personal pronouns denoted reflexive meanings.

Possessive: they are derived from the genitive case of the personal pronouns of all persons and numbers: min, thin, uncer, incer, ure, his, hire, hiera, etc.

Demonstrative: 2 pronouns ‘se’ (that) þes (this). They were declined like adjectives according to a five-case system (+ Instrumental Case). The meaning of the pronoun ‘se’ is often weakened, so that it approaches the status of an article: se mann (the man), seo sae (the sea).

ME pronoun:

During that period the following changes occurred:

- dual number pronouns disappeared; genitive case forms no longer existed; the dative and accusative merged into one objective case; the 3d person plural pronouns hi is superseded by the Scandinavian ‘ they ’; initial ‘h’ in ‘ hit ’ often lost; occasionally the pronoun ‘ye’ is used in addressing one person.

Nom. I, ich thou he she hit/it we ye hi/they

Obj. Me the him/ hir/her hit/it us you hem/them

Possessive pronouns: 1 person (min, mi), 2 person Thin, thi) 3d person (his, hir/her, his) Plural (our, your, hire/their). The forms ‘min, thin’ are used before a vowel or ‘h’: min elbowe, myn herte. The forms my, thy are found before a word with the initial consonant (except ‘h’) thy child

Demonstrative:

There are 2 demonstrative pronouns: sē (that) and þes (this)

The traditional view was that the definite article appears in OE, while the indefinite article appears in ME. But the point is that the notion of definite article can only be applied on condition that there exists in the language at the same time another article, the indefinite one. And the two notions ‘definite’ and ‘indefinite’ have a reasonable sense only as members of an opposition based on the category of definiteness/indefiniteness. Since there obviously was no indefinite article in OE, the article emerging from the pronoun sē could not in exact terminology be called definite. Therefore, it is possible to say that in OE there appeared an article, and the opposition of OE was that between article and no article (zero article).

OE forms of demonstrative pronoun (or definite article) se, seo were changed into the, theo. In Early ME forms like the, theo, that functioned both as demonstrative pronoun and as article. Since the 14^th century the form ‘that’ was only preserved as a demonstrative pronoun form.

MnE pronoun:

The Middle English forms of personal pronouns underwent little change. The tendency to use ‘ ye ’ in addressing one person arose in ME already. In Shakespeare’s works both ‘ thou ’ and ‘ ye ’ are found, with stylistic differentiation between them. Eventually ‘ thou ’ completely vanished from ordinary literary language and was only preserved in elevated poetic and religious style, and also among Quakers. In the 16^th century distinction between nominative ‘ ye ’ and objective ‘ you’ began to disappear and in the 17^th century ‘ye’ finally became archaic. The neuter possessive his was superseded by ‘its’ in the 17^th century. The feminine possessive became ‘her’. Reflexive pronouns developed from the correspondent ME forms. Demonstrative pronouns acquired the following forms: this- these, that –those. Interrogative: who, whose, what, which. And other pronouns like compounds somebody, something, etc.’

Personal Pronouns

ME:

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