All pronouns in ME with the exception of the personal ones lose the categories of gender and case, some lose their number – that is, agreeing with nouns they simplified their paradigm according to the changes in the system of the noun. (то есть, соглашаясь с существительными, они упрощают свою парадигму в соответствии с изменениями в системе существительного.)
The loss was greatest in the demonstratives. Of the numerous forms of sē, sēo, toet we have only the and that surviving through ME and continuing in use today. A plural tho (those) survived to (сохранилось до) Elizabethan times. All the other forms indicative (указывающие на) of different gender, number, and case disappeared in most dialects early in the Middle English period.
In the personal pronoun the losses were not so great. Most of the distinctions (различия) that existed in OE were retained (сохранены). However the forms of the dative and accusative cases were early combined, generally under that of the dative (him, her, hem). In the neuter (в качестве) the form of the accusative (h)it became the general objective case, partly because it was like the nominative, and partly because the dative him would have been subject to confusion (был подвержен путанице) with the corresponding case of the masculine. One other general simplification is to be noted: the loss of the dual number.
