Most pronouns are
declined by number, case and gender;
in the plural form most pronouns have only one form for all genders.
Additionally, Old English pronouns reserve the
dual form (which is specifically
for talking about groups of two things, for example "we two"
or "you two" or "they two"). These were uncommon
even then, but remained in use throughout the period.
Many of the forms
above bear strong resemblances to their
contemporary English language equivalents: for instance in the
genitive case ēower
became "your", ūre
became "our", mīn
became "mine".
The English language
once had an extensive declension system similar to Latin, modern
German or Icelandic. Old English
distinguished between the nominative, accusative, dative, and
genitive cases. In addition, the dual was distinguished from the more
modern singular and plural. Declension was greatly simplified during
the Middle English period, when accusative and dative pronouns merged
into a single objective pronoun.
"Who" and
"whom", "he" and "him", "she"
and "her", etc. are remnants of both the old nominative
versus accusative and also of
nominative versus dative.
In other words, "her" serves as both the dative and
accusative version of the nominative pronoun "she". In Old
English as well as modern German, these cases had distinct pronouns.
Personal
pronouns in Old English.
Personal pronouns in
Old English had three persons,
three numbers
in the 1st and 2nd person, (two numbers in the 3rd) and three
genders in the 3rd person. The pronouns
of the 1st and 2nd person had suppletive forms like their parallels
in other Indo-European languages. The pronouns of the 3rd person,
having originated from demonstrative pronouns, had many affinities
with the latter.
The first-person
pronouns are quite similar to those of
Modern English, especially in prose, where you will generally see
accusative singular mē rather than mec.
Sing. Nom. ic
Dual. Nom. wit Plur.
Nom. wē,
Gen. mīn
Gen. uncer Gen. ūser, ūre
Dat. mē
Dat. unc Dat. ūs
Acc. mec, mē
Acc. uncit, unc Acc. ūsic, ūs
The second-person
pronouns, on the other hand, have
changed radically since the Old English period. Modern English does
not distinguish number or any case but the possessive; in fact there
are now only two forms of the pronoun, you and your. By contrast, the
second-person pronouns of Old English look a lot like the
first-person pronouns, distinguishing number and at least three of
the cases.
Sing. Nom. ðu Dual. Nom. ġit Plur.
Nom. ġē
Gen. ðīn
Gen. incer Gen. ēower
Dat. ðē
Dat. inc Dat. ēow
Acc. ðec, ðē
Acc. incit, inc Acc. ēowic, ēow
Old English does not
use the second-person singular as a "familiar" form, the
way Middle English sometimes does: ðū is simply singular. Like
mec, accusative singular ðec is mainly poetic.
The third-person
pronouns, unlike the first- and
second-person pronouns, are inflected for gender, but only in the
singular.
Masculine gender:
Sing. Nom. hē
Plur. Nom. hīe
Gen. his
Gen. hira
Dat. him
Dat. him
Acc. hine
Acc. hīe
Feminine gender:
Sing. Nom. hēo
Plur. Nom. hīe
Gen. hire
Gen. hira
Dat. hire
Dat. him
Acc. hīe
Acc. hīe
Neuter gender:
Sing. Nom. hit
Plur. Nom. hīe
Gen. his
Gen. hira
Dat. him
Dat. him
Acc. hit
Acc. hīe
Several of the forms in
table can represent two cases or genders. The forms repeat themselves
in the same pattern:
- neuter nominative
and accusative singular forms are the same;
- neuter and masculine
genitive singular forms are the same;
- neuter and masculine
dative singular forms are the same;
- feminine genitive and
dative singular forms are the same;
- plural nominative and
accusative forms are the same.
The third-person plural
pronouns don't start with th- the way their Modern English
counterparts do. Dative plural him is exactly the same as the
masculine/neuter dative singular pronoun.
