Demonstrative pronouns in OE

The Pronoun

OE pronouns fell roughly under the same main classes as modern pronouns:

v Personal

v Demonstrative

v Interrogative

v Indefinite

As for the other groups – relative, possessive and reflective – they were as yet not fully developed and were not always distinctly separated from the 4 main classes. The grammatical categories of the pronouns were either similar to those of nouns or corresponded to those of adjectives. Some features of pronouns were peculiar of them alone.

Personal pronouns in OE

OE personal pronouns had 3 persons, 3 numbers in the 1^st and 2^nd person (two numbers – in the 3^rd) and 3 genders in the 3^rd person.

	sg.	dual	pl.
1^st p.	ic	wit	wē
2^nd p.	ðū	ʒit	ʒē
3^rd p.	hē, hēo, hit	-	hīe

There also existed the so-called dual from used for referring to 2 persons wit which means we two and ʒit which means you two. Only the first and second person pronouns had the dual number.

In OE the 2^nd person pronouns had 2 different forms unlike the NE you for both (in the Nom. Case ðū for sg. and ʒē for pl.).

In the 3^rd person sg. the pronoun had 3 genders. Besides all personal pronouns could be declined. They had 4 case forms.

Pronouns of the 1^st and 2^nd person had suppletive case forms.

	sg.	dual	pl.
Nom.	ic	wit	wē
Gen.	mīn	uncer	ūre
Dat.	mē	unc	ūs
Acc.	mec, mē	uncit	ūsic (ūs)

The declension of the 3^rd person pronoun resembled a real change of case forms. E.g. masculine 3^rd person sg.

	sg.
Nom.	hē
Gen.	his
Dat.	him
Acc.	hine

The genitive case of personal pronouns had 2 main applications. Like other oblique cases it could be an object and it was always used instead of possessive pronounces because there were no possessives at that time.

The form of the Dat. and Acc. Were often homonymous. E.g. the 2^nd person pl.

	pl.
Nom.	ʒē
Gen.	ēower
Dat.	ēow
Acc.	ēow

Demonstrative pronouns in OE

There were 2 demonstrative pronouns in OE: the prototype of NE that, which distinguished 3 genders in the singular sē (m), sēo (f), ðæt (n) and 1^st plural form ðā for all the genders and the prototype of the modern pronoun this, with the same subdivision – sg. ðes (m), ðēos (f), (n) and pl. ðās for all the genders.

ME	OE
prototype	sg (m)	sg (f)	sg (n)	pl
that	sē	sēo	ðæt	ðā
this	ðes	ðēos	ðis	ðās

They were all declined according to a 5 case system:

o Nominative

o Genitive

o Dative

o Accusative

o Instrumental

Of the 2 set the set of the pronoun sē was by far the more common. Its demonstrative meaning was weakened and it was often used as equivalent of the NE definite article. The group of the pronoun ðes fully preserved its meaning of demonstrative ðes.

Demonstrative pronouns are of special importance for they were used as nouns determiners (they agreed with nouns in number, gender and case and they helped to define the forms of nouns in case of homonymy of noun forms).

---

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14