He (pronoun)

This article is about the English personal pronoun. For other uses, see He (disambiguation).

He is a masculine third-person, singular personal pronoun (subjective case) in Modern English, as well as being a personal pronoun in Middle English.

Usage

People

"He" can be used as a substitution of a male's name.

Animals

"He" and "she" are often used to refer to domesticated animals and sometimes non-domesticated animals of the respective sex.

Gender neutral

See also: Gender-neutral_pronoun § English

A study has shown that "there was a rather extended period of time in the history of the English language when the choice of a supposedly masculine personal pronoun (him) said nothing about the gender or sex of the referent."

The use of "he" to refer to a person of unknown gender was often prescribed by manuals of style and school textbooks from the early 18th century until around the 1960s, an early example of which is Ann Fisher's 1745 grammar book "A New Grammar".

• A good student always does his homework.
• If someone asks you for help, give it to him.
• When a customer argues, always agree with him.

This may be compared to usage of the word man to humans in general.

• "All men are created equal."
• "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."
• "Man cannot live by bread alone."

Gender-specific pronouns were also prescribed when one might presume that most members of some group are the same gender (although in recent times, such presumptions are sometimes seen as offensive).

• A secretary should keep her temper in check.
• A janitor should respect his employers.
• Every plumber has his own tools.
• A nurse should always be kind to her patients.

Other

The pronoun He, with a universally capitalized H, is often used to refer to the Supreme Being, or in Christian contexts, to Jesus Christ; "It", with a capitalized I, is also used when speaking of the Supreme Being's nature or Godhead, or in Christian contexts, to refer to the Logos; capitalized "He" and "It" have both been used to refer to the Holy Spirit. In Catholic Christian circles, the Blessed Sacrament is also referred to with the capitalized pronoun "It".

Gender

Main article: Gender in English

The gender system in Modern English is generally natural, semantic and logical; however it is most similar to languages whose gender systems primarily distinguish between the animate and inanimate, and between the personal and impersonal. In the table RP stands for relative pronoun and PP for personal pronoun. Template:Gender classes in English

Etymology

Indo-European

The reconstructed Indo-European language provides a demonstrative pronoun ko.

Germanic

English is a development of the West Germanic language family.

Old English

Old English pronouns

			Nominative	IPA	Accusative	Dative	Genitive
1st	Singular		iċ	[itʃ]	mec / mē	mē	mīn
	Dual		wit	[wit]	uncit	unc	uncer
	Plural		wē	[weː]	ūsic	ūs	ūser / ūre
2nd	Singular		þū	[θuː]	þec / þē	þē	þīn
	Dual		ġit	[jit]	incit	inc	incer
	Plural		ġē	[jeː]	ēowic	ēow	ēower
3rd	Singular	Masculine	hē	[heː]	hine	him	his
		Neuter	hit	[hit]	hit	him	his
		Feminine	hēo	[heːo]	hīe	hiere	hiere
	Plural		hīe	[hiːy]	hīe	heom	heora

Speakers of Old English (OE) considered each noun to have a grammatical gender — masculine, feminine or neuter. Pronouns were generally (but not always) selected to have the same grammatical gender as the noun they referred to. For example, dæg ([dæj] 'day') was masculine, so a masculine pronoun was used when referring to a day or days. The pronoun "he" was written he, as in Present-Day English (PrDE), but pronounced hē ([heː]), rather like PrDE hay.

Middle English

Middle English personal pronouns
Below each Middle English pronoun, the Modern English is shown in italics (with archaic forms in parentheses)

Person / gender		Subject	Object	Possessive determiner	Possessive pronoun	Reflexive
Singular
First		ic / ich / I I	me / mi me	min / minen [pl.] my	min / mire / minre mine	min one / mi seluen myself
Second		þou / þu / tu / þeou you (thou)	þe you (thee)	þi / ti your (thy)	þin / þyn yours (thine)	þeself / þi seluen yourself (thyself)
Third	Masculine	he he	him / hine him	his / hisse / hes his	his / hisse his	him-seluen himself
	Feminine	sche[o] / s[c]ho / ȝho she	heo / his / hie / hies / hire her	hio / heo / hire / heore her	- hers	heo-seolf herself
	Neuter	hit it	hit / him it	his its	his its	hit sulue itself
Plural
First		we we	us / ous us	ure[n] / our[e] / ures / urne our	oures ours	us self / ous silue ourselves
Second		ȝe / ye you (ye)	eow / [ȝ]ou / ȝow / gu / you you	eower / [ȝ]ower / gur / [e]our your	youres yours	Ȝou self / ou selue yourselves
Third	From Old English	heo / he	his / heo[m]	heore / her	-	-
	From Old Norse	þa / þei / þeo / þo	þem / þo	þeir	-	þam-selue
	modern	they	them	their	theirs	themselves

There was one change to the inflection of the masculine pronoun in Middle English. The OE dative form him replaced the OE accusative hine [hinə]. This meant that, in Middle English, there was no distinction between masculine and impersonal, except in the subject case of the third-person singular, until it from hit replaced him in the object case of the impersonal. Some scholars believe that "there was rather an extended period of time in the history of the English language when the choice of a supposedly masculine personal pronoun (him) said nothing about the gender or sex of the referent."

See also

• English personal pronouns
• Gender-specific pronoun
• Generic antecedents

References

Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartvik. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, Longman, 1985.

External links

• William Malone Baskervill and James Witt Sewel, An English Grammar, 1896.
• 'He', The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth edition, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000).