Appendix:Middle English personal pronouns

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Personal pronouns

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The following is a table of Middle English personal pronouns. Due to wide dialectical variation and lack of standard orthography, many variations exist for each pronoun; those given here are variants that represent major formal classes. The modern equivalents of each are given in italics below.

number person nominative
(subject)
accusative
(direct object)
dative
(indirect object)
genitive
(poss. determiner)
genitive
(poss. pronoun)
singular 1st-person
modern
I, ich, ik
I
me
me
min, mi1
my
min
mine
2nd-person
modern (archaic)
þou
thou
þe
thee
þin, þi1
thy
þin
thine
3rd-person masculine
modern
he
he
him, hine2
him
him
him
his
his
his, hisen
his
feminine
modern
sche, heo
she
hire, heo
her
hire
her
hire, hires, hiren
hers
neuter
modern
hit
it
hit, him2
it
his, hit
its

(its)
dual3 1st-person
modern
wit
(us two, we two)
unk
(us two)
unker
(the two of ours)
2nd-person
modern
ȝit
(you two)
inc
(you two)
inker
(the two of yours)
plural 1st-person
modern
we
we
us, ous
us
oure
our
oure, oures, ouren
ours
2nd-person4
modern (archaic)
ye
you (ye)
yow
you
your
your
your, youres, youren
yours
3rd-person from Old English
modern
he hem, he2
'em
hem
'em
here here, heres, heren
from Old Norse
modern
þei
they
þem, þeim
them
þeir
their
þeir, þeires, þeiren
theirs
1Used preconsonantally or before h.
2Early or dialectal.
3Dual pronouns are only sporadically found in Early Middle English; after that, they are replaced by plural forms. There are no third-person dual forms in Middle English.
4Sometimes used as a formal 2nd-person singular.

Reflexive pronouns

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Unlike in Modern English, where reflexive pronouns are consistently formed with the suffix -self appended to the genitive/possessive pronoun, a variety of strategies could be used to mark reflexivity in Middle English. The word self could be appended to either the genitive or accusative (giving rise to the Modern English suffix), or used alone. Finally, much as in Old English, a pronoun can be used without any special marking for reflexivity.

Indefinite pronouns

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There exist in Middle English as well several indefinite pronouns, corresponding to the Modern English one or generic you: the three main forms are man, men and me, each formed by phonetic reduction from the former.

References

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  • Francis Henry Stratmann, A Middle-English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 1891. link
  • A.L. Mayhew, Walter W. Skeat, A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 to 1580, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1888. link