III. Pronoun in oe

Etymologically the modern pronoun is rather a heterogenous part of speech. The personal and the demonstrative pronouns are of common Indo-European stock, while others originated only in OE or MidE periods (e.g. possessive, relative).

It must be noted that the paradigm of the Pronoun shows no traces of influence exercised by the nominal declension, which is a proof that the pronoun followed a way autonomous from that of the noun or adjective.

The preservation of the dual number and of numerous suppletive forms in the paradigms of personal and demonstrative OE pronouns is the manifestation of the ancient origin of this part of speech.

OE pronouns had roughly the same main classes as modern ones: personal, demonstrative, interrogative and indefinite. Other classes – relative, possessive, reflexive – were not fully developed and were not distinctly separated from the main classes. The grammatical categories of the pronouns were either similar to those of nouns (“noun” pronouns), or to those of adjectives (“adjective” pronouns).

1. Development of Personal pronouns

Personal pronouns had 3 persons, 3 numbers in the 1 and 2 persons & 2 numbers – in the 3 person. Unlike nouns, already in OE pronouns began to lose some of their case distinctions: Dat. and Acc. in the 1, 2 persons coincided. The forms of the Gen. Case were used as possessive pronouns, but they can not be regarded as the class of possessive pronouns. The grammatical features of these forms were not homogeneous.

Singular

1^st pers. 2^nd pers. 3^rd pers.

Masc. Femin. Neut.

N. ic N. þū (thow) N. hē N. hēo N. hit

G. mīn G. þīn G. his G. hire G. his

D. mē D. þē D. him D. hire D. him

Ac. mē (mec) Ac. Þē, þēc Ac. hine Ac. hīe, hi Ac. hit

Dual

1^st pers. 2^nd pers.

N. wit (we two) N. it (you two)

G. uncer G. incer

D. unc D. inc

Acc. unc, uncit Acc. inc, incit

Plural

1^st pers. 2^nd pers. 3^rd pers.

N. wē N. 3e N. hīe (hī, hy, hēo)

G. ūre G. ēower G. hiera (hira, hyra, hiora)

D. ūs D. ēow D. him, heom

Ac. ūs (usic) Ac. ēow, ēowic Ac. hīe (hī, hy, hēo)