Pronouns

Most pronouns are declined by number, case and gender; in the plural form most pronouns have only one form for all genders. Additionally, Old English pronouns reserve the dual form (which is specifically for talking about groups of two things, for example "we two" or "you two" or "they two"). These were uncommon even then, but remained in use throughout the period.

First Person
Case	Singular	Plural	Dual
Nominative	ic, īc	wē	wit
Accusative	mec, mē	ūsic, ūs	uncit, unc
Genitive	mīn	ūre	uncer
Dative	mē	ūs	unc

Second Person
Case	Singular	Plural	Dual
Nominative	þū	gē	git
Accusative	þēc, þē	ēowic, ēow	incit, inc
Genitive	þīn	ēower	incer
Dative	þē	ēow	inc

Third Person
Case	Singular	Plural
Masc.	Neut.	Fem.
Nominative	hē	hit	hēo	hiē m., hēo f.
Accusative	hine	hit	hīe	hiē m., hīo f.
Genitive	his	his	hire	hiera m., heora f.
Dative	him	him	hire	him

Many of the forms above bear strong resemblances to their contemporary English language equivalents: for instance in the genitive case ēower became "your", ūre became "our", mīn became "mine".

Post-Conquest English inherits its pronouns from Old English, with the exception of the third person plural, a borrowing from Old Norse (the original Old English form clashed with the third person singular and was eventually dropped):

Personal pronouns in Middle English
	Singular	Plural
Subject	Object	Possessive	Subject	Object	Possessive
First	I	me	mi(n)	we	us	oure
Second	þou/thou	þee/thee	þy/thy	ye	you	your
Third	Impersonal	hit	it/him	his	he þey/they	hem þem/them	hir þeir/their
Masculine	he	him	his
Feminine	sche	hire	hir

The Old English Numeral.

It is obvious that all Indo-European languages have the general trend of transformation from the synthetic (or inflectional) stage to the analytic one. At least for the latest 1,000 years this trend could be observed in all branches of the family.

The level of this analitization process in each single language can be estimated by several features, their presence or absence in the language. One of them is for sure the declension of the numerals.

In Proto-Indo-European all numerals, both cardinal and ordinal, were declined, as they derived on a very ancient stage from nouns or adjectives, originally being a declined part of speech. There are still language groups within the family with decline their numerals: among them, Slavic and Baltic are the most typical samples. They practically did not suffer any influence of the analytic processes. But all other groups seem to have been influenced somehow. Ancient Italic and Hellenic languages left the declension only for the first four cardinal pronouns (from 1 to 4), the same with ancient Celtic.

The Old English language preserves this system of declension only for three numerals. It is therefore much easier to learn, though not for English speakers I guess - Modern English lacks declension at all.

Here is the list of the cardinal numerals:

1 án	20 twentig
2 twá	21 twentig ond án
3 þríe	30 þrítig
4 féower	40 féowertig
5 fíf	50 fíftig
6 six, syx, siex	60 siextig
7 seofon, syofn	70 siofontig
8 eahta	80 eahtatig
9 nigon	90 nigontig
10 tien, týn	100 hundtéontig, hund, hundred
11 endlefan	110 hundælleftig
12 twelf	120 hundtwelftig
13 þríotíene	200 tú hund
14 féowertíene	1000 þúsend
15 fíftíene...	2000 tú þúsendu

And here is the declension of some of them:

1 án is declined just like a strong adjective, can be only singular, but has masculine, neuter and feminine genders. It is the source of the future indefinite article ' a, an' in Modern English. So 'a house ' in fact means "one house", here -n disappeared before a consonant. When at school, many of us thought that 'an ' derived from 'a' and it appeares vice versa.

2 twá:
So the genders have differences only in nominative and accusative cases, and indirect cases (genitive and dative) have common forms for all three genders. No number can be changed for it, and originally this numeral was dual, which seems natural.

Strange is the following: while in the case of "two" the Modern English lost masculine and neuter forms and picked up the feminine one for use ('two' < twá), here we have another case, when the feminine and neuter were forgotten, and today's three comes directly from the masculine þríe.

And the last is the numeral begen, bú, bá (both) which is declined the same way as twá and is also dual.

Ordinal numerals use the suffix -ta or -þa, etymologically a common Indo-European one (*-to-).

1 forma, fyresta	15 fíftéoþa
2 óþer, æfterra	16 sixtéoþa
3 þridda, þirda	17 siofontéoþa
4 féorþa	18 eahtatéoþa
5 fífta	19 nigontéoþa
6 siexta, syxta	20 twentigoþa
7 siofoþa	30 þrittigoþa
8 eahtoþa	40 féowertigoþa
9 nigoþa	50 fíftigoþa
10 téoþa	100 hundtéontiogoþa
11 endlefta
12 twelfta
13 þreotéoþa
14 féowertéoþa

The two variants for the word "first" actually mean different attributes: forma is translated as "forward", and fyresta is "the farthest", "the first". Again double variants for the second nominal mean respectively "the other" and "the following".

Mainly according to Old English texts ordinal numerals were used with the demonstrative pronoun þá before them. This is where the definite article in 'the first', 'the third' comes from. To say "the 22nd", for example, you should combine the following: either twá and twenigoþa (two and twentieth), or óþer éac twentigum (second with twenty). So the order is different from the modern English, but instead closer to Modern German where "the 22nd" sounds like zwei und zwanzig (two and twenty).

At all, it is easy to notice that the words in English became much shorter, and therefore simpler in pronunciation and learning. It is much easier to pronounce "hundredth" than hundtéontiogoþa, "fourth" than féowertéoþa. Modetrn English acquired words mainly having one or two syllables, but this was not the rule in the Old English period.
Middle English. This part of speech develops with some changes. They are no longer declined and lose the category of gender. Another innovation, or addition to the OE is the word millioun of French origin. Ordinal numerals developed the suffix –th. And the borrowing from French second replaced the former English æfter.

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