2. General features of the noun declension

In the prehistoric period of the development of the English language each case had an ending typical of its uninflected form. In the course of the development of the English language, however, due to various semantic and phonetic changes different cases began to develop similar endings; this phenomenon gave rise to the well-marked homonymity of case-forms in English.

The most distinct homonymous endings are as follows:

1. All the nouns in the genitive plural have the ending -a.

2. All the nouns in the dative plural have the ending –um.

3. The dative singular ends in a vowel or has no ending at all.

The existence of different endings of nouns grammatically alike and the homonymous endings of nouns grammatically different will later result in the uniformity of the morphological paradigm.

2. The pronoun

The OE pronoun was characterized by the following grammatical categories: a) gender – masculine, feminine and neuter; b) number – singular, plural and dual (in personal pronouns); c) case – nominative, genitive, dative, accusative and instrumental (in certain classes of pronouns).

Generally OE pronouns fell roughly under the same main classes as modern pronouns: personal, demonstrative, interrogative and indefinite. As for the other groups — relative, possessive and reflexive – they were as yet not fully developed and were not always distinctly separated from the four main classes.

3.1. Personal pronouns

As shown in Table 3.7 below, OE personal pronouns had three persons, three numbers in the 1st and 2nd p. (two numbers – in the 3rd) and three genders in the 3rd p., and four cases. The pronouns of the 1st and 2nd p. had suppletive forms like their parallels in other IE languages.

The forms of the genitive case formed a special group of pronouns – possessive pronouns.

Personal pronouns of the 1^st and 2^nd p. are distinguished from the others by the following peculiarities: 1) the dual number, i.e. ic – wit – wē, þu – it – ē; 2) suppletivity (the formation of different forms of the same word from different stems): ic – min – mē.

The distinction between the dual and the plural, according to Albert C. Baugh, is an unnecessary complication in language and was disappearing from the pronoun in OE. The dual forms were ultimately lost at the beginning of the ME period being replaced by the plural forms.

Table 3.7

Declension of personal pronouns

First person
Case Number		Singular	Dual		Plural
Nom. Gen. Dat. Acc.		ic mīn mē mec,mē	wit uncer unc uncit		wē ūre, ūser ūs ūsic, ūs
		Second person
Nom. Gen Dat. Acc.		þū þīn þē þēc, þē	it incer inc incit, inc		ē ēōwer ēōw ēōwic, ēōw
Third person ,
Number Singular	Singular			Plural
Case	M F N			All genders
Nom. Gen. Dat. Acc.	hē hēo hit his hire his him hire him hine hīe hit			hīē, hy, hē, hēo hira, heora, hiera, hyra him heom hīe, hī, hý, hēo

NB: The pronominal forms given in bold are grammatical variants within the literary norm of OE.

OE personal pronouns have been partially preserved in Modern English. Compare:

I < (i) < ic thou < þū he < hē

me < mē thee < þē him < him

mine < mīn thy < þīn his < his

we < wē it < hit

us < ūs her < hire you < ēōw

our < ūre your < ēōwer

The OE pronoun ē has been preserved in the form ye, e.g. “Arise, ye, prisoners of starvation!”

The dative case of the 3^rd p. pl. him has been preserved in the form ‘em: “I’ll make’em go!” (‘em from him and not them).