25. The development of personal pronouns

Personal: OE pers. Pronouns had 3 persons, 3 numbers in the 1^st & 2^nd persons, 3 genders in the 3^rd p. The pronouns of the 1^st and 2^nd p. had suppletive forms, the pronouns of the 3^rd p. had many affinities with the demonstrative pronouns. E.g. ic, wē, wit.

The oblique cases of personal pronouns in combination with the adjective «self» could also serve as reflexive pronouns.

In Middle English the pronouns «he» and «she» referred only to animate notions and «it» – to inanimate.

In Early ME the OE Fem. Pronoun of the 3^rd person sing. «heo» was replaced by a group of variants «he, ho, scei, sho, she», one of them «she» finally prevailed over the others.

The language preserved the unambiguous form «she» probably to avoid a homonymy clash, since the descendant of OE «heo» – ME «he» coincided with the Masc.pronoun «he».

The other forms of the OE «heo» were preserved: «hire/her», used in ME as the Object. Case and as a Posses. Pronoun, is a form of OE «heo» but not of its new subsitute «she». «Hers» was derived from the form «hire/her».

In the course of ME the OE pronoun of the 3^rd person plur. «hie» was replaced by the Scand.loan-word «they».

The pronoun «it» is a direct discendant of OE «hit» with «h» lost.

In NE the ME forms of the personal pronouns underwent a little change.

In Shakespeare’s works both pronouns «thou» and «ye» are found with stylistic differenciation between them.

Eventually «thou» completely vanished from the ordinary literary language and was only preserved in elevated poetic and religious style.

In the 16^th century distinction between nominative «ye» and objective «you» began to disappear. In the 17^th century «ye» finally became archaic.

26. The pronoun in me

The Middle English Pronoun

Pronouns in Middle English look much the same as their Modern English counterparts, with a few exceptions:

• The first person singular ("I") is variously spelled i, ich, ih, and is found capitalized as I from 1250. The objective (accusative and dative case) form is the same as Modern English: me. The possessive form myn, min may occur without the -n, but takes a final -e when used with plural nouns.

• The second person singular is thou. The objective (accusative and dative case) form is thee. The possessive thyn is sometimes written without the -n, but takes a final -e when used with a plural noun.

• He, him, his appear virtually unchanged. She may also be spelt sche, but we find hire rather than her and hir instead of hers. The third person singular neuter (it, also found in the older form hit) relates to the possessive his (not its!): ...Aprille with his shoures soote ...April, with its showers sweet.

• The first person plural we, us, and oure are easy to understand. In older texts, expect to find ure instead of oure.

• The second person plural ("all of you") is ye, but we find you as an object and possessive case your.

• The third person plural ("they") has they as a subject, but hem instead of them and hir for their.

It will be observed that the pronoun she had the form hēo in Old English. The modern form could have developed from the Old English hēo, but it is believed by some that it is due in part at least to the influence of the demonstrative sēo. A similar reinforcing influence of the demonstrative is perhaps to be seen in the forms of the third person plural, they, their, them, but here the source of the modern developments was undoubtedly Scandinavian. The normal development of the Old English pronouns would have been hi (he), here, hem, and these are very common. In the districts, however, where Scandinavian influence was strong, the nominative hi began early to be replaced by the Scandinavian form þei (ON þeir), and somewhat later a similar replacement occurred in the other cases, their and them. The new forms were adopted more slowly farther south, and the usual inflection in Chaucer is thei, here, hem. But by the end of the Middle English period the forms they their, them may be regarded as the normal English plurals