Appendix:Middle English personal pronouns
Personal pronouns
[edit]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
[edit]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
[edit]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.