Grammar

6. Personal Pronouns

Old English (OE) personal pronouns, like those of modern English (e.g., 'I', 'me', 'you', 'we'), are essentially suppletive: one must memorize all the forms. There are three persons (1st, 2nd, 3rd), three numbers (singular, dual [two], plural), and four cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative).

1st Person		Singular		Dual		Plural
Nom.		ic 'I'		wit 'we two'		wē 'we'
Gen.		mīn 'my, mine'		uncer 'our two'		ūser, ūre 'our'
Dat.		mē 'me'		unc 'us two'		ūs 'us'
Acc.		mec, mē		uncit, unc		ūsic, ūs

As can be seen from the tables above and below, the OE accusative case was merging with the dative as the early, specifically accusative forms (listed first, above and below) were lost. The result was our modern objective case.

2nd Person		Singular		Dual		Plural
Nom.		ðū 'thou, you'		git 'you two'		gē 'ye, you'
Gen.		ðīn 'thine, your'		incer 'your two'		ēower, ēowre 'your'
Dat.		ðē 'thee, you'		inc 'you two'		ēow 'you'
Acc.		ðec, ðē		incit, inc		ēowic, ēow

Third person pronouns did not have dual forms, and in the Middle English period the dual was lost in 1st and 2nd person as well. The singular 3rd person forms come in masculine, feminine, and neuter gender; of course grammatical gender does not necessarily translate into sex, as modern English usage and our translations below might seem to imply.

3rd Person		Masc. Sg.		Fem. Sg.		Neut. Sg.		Plural
Nom.		hē 'he'		hēo, hīe 'she'		hit, hyt 'it'		hēo, hīe, hī, hȳ 'they'
Gen.		his 'his'		hire 'her'		his 'its'		hira, heora, hiera 'their'
Dat.		him 'him'		hire 'her'		him 'it'		him, heom 'them'
Acc.		hine 'him'		hēo, hīe 'her'		hit, hyt 'it'		hēo, hīe, hī, hȳ 'them'

The tables all show that alternative spellings of personal pronouns appeared in the literature: there are relatively few single,