English personal pronouns: Difference between revisions
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* The third person plural form '''em'' is believed to be a survival of the late Old English form ''heom'', which appears as ''hem'' in Chaucer, and has apparently lost its aspiration due to being used as an unstressed form. |
* The third person plural form '''em'' is believed to be a survival of the late Old English form ''heom'', which appears as ''hem'' in Chaucer, and has apparently lost its aspiration due to being used as an unstressed form. |
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* The forms of ''they'' are also sometimes used with grammatically or semantically singular [[antecedent (grammar)|antecedents]], though it is a matter of some dispute whether and when such usage is acceptable. When this is the case, they take a plural verb, but ''themselves'' with a singular sense is often changed to ''themself''. |
* The forms of ''they'' are also sometimes used with grammatically or semantically singular [[antecedent (grammar)|antecedents]], though it is a matter of some dispute whether and when such usage is acceptable. When this is the case, they take a plural verb, but ''themselves'' with a singular sense is often changed to ''themself''. |
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* Although |
* Although grammarians and usage writers often condemn the use of the singular they when gender unknown or unimportant, this is often used, both in speech and in writing. In fact, a consistent pattern of usage can be traced at least as far back as Shakespeare, and possibly even back to Middle English. It avoids awkward constructions like ''he or she''. This usage is authorised and preferred by the Australian Government Manual of Style for official usage in government documents. See ''[[Singular they]]''. |
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==References== |
==References== |
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Revision as of 11:31, 17 October 2007
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The personal pronouns of English can have various forms according to gender, number, person, and case. Modern English is a language with very little inflection, to the point where some authors describe it as analytic, but its system of personal pronouns has preserved part of the inflectional complexity of Old English.
Basic personal pronouns of modern English
The basic personal pronouns of modern English are shown below. Possessive pronouns are used to show possession.
Template:Modern English personal pronouns (table)
Full list of pronouns
The following table shows the full list of English personal pronouns, including archaic and dialectal forms. Reflexive pronouns are used as the object of a sentence when it coincides with the subject.
| personal pronoun | possessive pronoun |
possessive determiner | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| subjective | objective | reflexive | |||||
| first-person | singular | I | me | myself | mine | my | |
| plural | we | us | ourselves ourself |
ours | our | ||
| second-person | singular | standard (archaic formal) | you | you | yourself | yours | your |
| archaic informal | thou | thee | thyself | thine | thy | ||
| plural | standard | you | you | yourselves | yours | your | |
| archaic | ye | you | yourselves | yours | your | ||
| nonstandard | you guys you all y'all youse youse guys you-uns |
you guys you all y'all youse youse guys you-uns yous yis |
yourselves y'all's selves |
yours y'all's yous's |
your y'all's | ||
| third-person | singular | masculine | he | him | himself | his | his |
| feminine | she | her | herself | hers | her | ||
| neuter | it | it | itself | - | its | ||
| plural | they | them, 'em | themselves | theirs | their | ||
I and me
- In modern English, me is often used as the predicative of the copula. In colloquial speech, it is also frequently used as a subject, in certain kinds of sentences. See It's I/It's me for a more detailed discussion.
My and mine, thy and thine
- Historically, my comes from a reduction of mine, and well after the emergence of my, mine continued to be used instead of my before words beginning with vowel sounds. Similarly with thy and thine.
Ourself
- Ourself is used when we is semantically singular as in the royal we, the editorial we, and the nurse's we, e.g. "We seem a bit displeased with ourself, don't we?"
You and Ye
- Historically, you was an object pronoun, and ye was its subject counterpart; today, you fills both roles in Standard English, though some dialects use ye for the two roles, and some use ye as an apocopated or clitic form of you.
- The only common distinction between singular and plural you is in the reflexive and emphatic forms.
- You and its variants can sometimes be used in a generic sense. See Generic you.
Thou
- Sometime between 1600 and 1800, the various second-person singular forms of thou began to pass out of common usage in most places, except in poetry, archaic-style literature, and descriptions of other languages' pronouns. Thou refers to one person who is familiar, though as in other European languages, it is also used of God. Today they have all but disappeared from Standard English, though a few dialects retain them.
- Thou still exists in parts of England and Scotland, and in some Christian religious communities. See Thou, for further information.
Other second person pronouns
- While formal Standard English uses you for both singular and plural, many dialects use various special forms for the plural, such as y'all (short for "you all"), you guys, yinz (short for "you ones"), and yous (also spelled youse). Corresponding reflexive and possessive pronouns are often used as well.
- In Scotland, yous is often used for the second person plural (particularly in the Central Belt area). However, in some parts of the country, ye is used for the plural you. In older times and in some other places today, ye is the nominative case and you is the accusative case. Some English dialects generalised ye, while standard English generalised you. Some dialects use ye as a clipped or clitic form of you.
His and its
- Historically, his was the possessive of it as well of he; nowadays it has been completely supplanted by its.
Third person plural
- Historically the forms they, their, and them are of Scandinavian origin (from the Viking invasions and settlement in northeastern England during the Danelaw period from the 9th to the 11th centuries).[1]
- The third person plural form 'em is believed to be a survival of the late Old English form heom, which appears as hem in Chaucer, and has apparently lost its aspiration due to being used as an unstressed form.
- The forms of they are also sometimes used with grammatically or semantically singular antecedents, though it is a matter of some dispute whether and when such usage is acceptable. When this is the case, they take a plural verb, but themselves with a singular sense is often changed to themself.
- Although grammarians and usage writers often condemn the use of the singular they when gender unknown or unimportant, this is often used, both in speech and in writing. In fact, a consistent pattern of usage can be traced at least as far back as Shakespeare, and possibly even back to Middle English. It avoids awkward constructions like he or she. This usage is authorised and preferred by the Australian Government Manual of Style for official usage in government documents. See Singular they.
References
- ^ Morse-Gagne, Elise E. 2003. Viking pronouns in England: Charting the course of THEY, THEIR, and THEM. University of Pennsylvania doctoral dissertation. University Microfilms International.
It should also be noted that the conclusion that these pronouns are of Scandinavian origin did not originate with this dissertation. It was published by Kluge in his Geschichte der Englischen Sprache in 1899 and by Bjorkman in Scandinavian loan-words in Middle English in 1900, and while it is commonly accepted, some scholars have disputed this claim.