The pronoun

The following classes of pronoun were to be observed in Old English: personal, possessive, demonstrative, interrogative, relative and indefinite pronouns.

The system of declension of the pronoun was not the same for all the classes. It has at least two subsystems that should be singled out: the declension of personal pronouns on the one hand and the declension of other pronouns. Although the grammatical categories of each subsystem were the same, i.e. gender, number, case, the number of the categorical forms composing those categories was different.

3.1. The personal pronoun

The Old English personal pronoun similar to the Old English noun had the grammatical categories of gender, number and case.

Gender

Three genders could be distinguished in the pronominal paradigm: masculine, feminine and neuter, but different forms for different genders were found only in the third person singular, the rest of the forms being indifferent to gender.

Masculine feminine neuter

Nom. Sing. Hē (he) hēo (she) hit (it)

Nom. Plur. hī (they)

Number

The category of number differs from that of the noun as in the first and second person we find three categorical forms: singular, dual and plural, for instance:

Singular dual Plural

Ic (I) wit (two of us) wē (we)

Case

The category of case is built up the opposition of four categorical forms, similar to those of the noun: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative.

Unlike the Old English noun, the paradigm of which was composed of forms that mainly differed in the ending, the paradigm of the Old English personal pronouns is built up by suppletive forms and the homonymty of pronominal forms is not great. We find it only in the Dative and the Accusative cases.

Declension of the personal pronoun Ic

Number

Case

Singular

Dual

Plural

Nominative

Genitive

Dative

Accusative

mīn

mē

mec, mē

wit

uncer

unc

wē

ūser, ūre

ūs

ūsic, ūs

3.2. Other pronouns

All Old English pronouns with the exception of personal pronouns with the exception of personal pronouns were declined almost alike. They expressed the grammatical categories of gender (three forms: masculine, feminine and neuter), number (two forms: singular and plural) and case, which was built up by five categorical forms: the nominative, the Accusative, the Dative, the Genitive and the Instrumental, different from the Dative only in the singular.

If we compare the paradigm of these pronouns with those of the noun and the personal pronoun we cannot but take notice that they differed in number of the categorical forms composing the category of number.

The personal pronoun unlike the rest of the pronouns and the noun possessed three categorical forms composing the category of number.

All the other pronouns unlike the personal pronoun and the noun had five cases.

Personal pronouns

First person
Case	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nom.	ic	wit	wē
Gen.	mīn	uncer	ūre, ūser
Dat.	mē	unc	ūs
Acc.	mec, mē	uncit	ūsic, ūs

Second person
Case	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nom.	Þū	git	gē
Gen.	Þīn	incer	ēower
Dat.	Þē	inc	ēow
Acc.	Þēc, Þē	incit, inc	ēowic, ēow

Third person
	Masc.	Fem.	Neuter	Plural
Nom.	hē	hēo, hīo	hit	hīe, hī, hú, hēo
Gen.	his	hire, hiere	his	hira, heora, hiera, hyra
Dat.	him	hire, hiere	him	him, heom
Acc.	hine	hīe, hī, hú	hit	hīe, hī, hú, hēo

OE pronouns fell roughly under the same main classes as modern pronouns: personal, demonstrative, interrogative, definite\indefinite.

Personal: OE pers. Pronouns had 3 persons, 3 numbers in the 1st & 2nd persons, 3 genders in the 3rd p. The pronouns of the 1stand 2nd p. had suppletive forms, the pronouns of the 3rd p. had many affinities with the demonstrative pronouns. E.g. ic, wē, wit.

Demonstrative: There were 2 demonstr.pronouns in OE: the prototype of NE “That” which destinguished 3 genders in the sing. & ahd 1 form for all the genders in the plural & the prototype of “This” with the same subdivisions: ђes(masc.), ђēos( fem.), ђis(neutr.), & ђās(plural). They were declined like adjectives accordimg to a 5-case system. Also, they were very important, as they were frequently used as a noun determiners & through agreement with the noun, indicated its number, gender & case: e.g. on ђæm lande(on that land), tō ђære heorde (to that herd)-(to define the forms of the nouns).

OE personal pronouns.

OE personal pronouns had 3 persons, 3 numbers(sing, dual, plural) in the 1st and 2nd persons; 3 genders(masculine, feminine, neutral) in the 3rd person. The pronouns of the 1st and 2nd had suppletive forms; the pronouns of the 3rd person had many affinities with the demonstrative pronouns.

In OE personal pronouns began to lose some of their case distinctions: the forms of the Dat. Case were frequently used instead of the Acc.: in fact the fusion of these 2 cases in the plural was completed in the West Saxon dialect already in Early OE: Acc. ēowic & ūsic were replaced by Dat. ēow & ūs. In the singular, usage was variable but variant forms revealed the same tendency to generalize the form of the Dat. for both cases.

The Gen. Case of personal pronouns had 2 main applications: like other oblique cases of noun-pronouns it could be an object, but far more frequently it was used as an attribute or a noun determiner.: e.g. sunu mīn, NE my son; his fæder(his father). The grammatical characteristics of the forms of the Gen.case, that were employed as possessive pronouns, were not homogeneous. The forms of the 1st and 2nd persons: mīn, ūre and others – were declined like adjectives to show agreement with the nouns they modified, while the forms of the 3rd person behaved like nouns: they remained uninflected and didn’t agree with the nouns they modified.

1st pers. Case sing dual plural

Nom. Ic wit wē

Gen. Mīn uncer ūre, ūser

Dat. mē unc ūs

Acc. Mec, mē uncit ūsic, ūs

2nd pers. Case sing dual plural

Nom ђū zit zē

Gen ђīn incer ēower

Dat ђē inc ēow

Acc ђēc, ђē incit, inc ēowic, ēow

3rd pers. Case sing plural

M F N all genders

Nom hē hēo, hīo hit hīe, hī, hỹ, hēo

Gen his hire, hiere his hira, heora, hiera

Dat him hire, hiere him him, heom

Acc hine hū, hī, hỹ hit hū, hī, hỹ