Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as I), second person (as you), or third person (as he, she, it). Personal pronouns may also take different forms depending on number (usually singular or plural), grammatical or natural gender , case , and formality.
The English personal pronouns are a subset of English pronouns taking various forms according to number, person, case and grammatical gender. Modern English has very little inflection of nouns or adjectives, to the point where some authors describe it as an analytic language, but the Modern English system of personal pronouns has preserved some of the inflectional complexity of Old English and ...
An archaic set of second-person pronouns used for singular reference is thou, thee, thyself, thy, thine, which are still used in religious services and can be seen in older works, such as Shakespeare's—in such texts, ye and the you set of pronouns are used for plural reference, or with singular reference as a formal V-form. [7]
Personal pronouns may be classified by person, number, gender and case. English has three persons (first, second and third) and two numbers (singular and plural); in the third person singular there are also distinct pronoun forms for male, female and neuter gender. [2]: 52–53 Principal forms are shown in the adjacent table.
The third-person singular personal pronouns are chosen according to the natural gender of their antecedent or referent. As a general rule: As a general rule: he (and its related forms him , himself , his ) is used when the referent is male, or something to which male characteristics are attributed;
Personal pronouns in Early Modern English; Nominative Oblique Genitive Possessive; 1st person singular I me my/mine [# 1] mine plural we us our ours 2nd person singular informal thou thee thy/thine [# 1] thine plural informal ye you your yours formal you 3rd person singular he/she/it him/her/it his/her/his (it) [# 2] his/hers/his [# 2] plural ...
Old English had a first-person pronoun that inflected for four cases and three numbers. I originates from Old English (OE) ic, which had in turn originated from the continuation of Proto-Germanic *ik, and ek; [3] the asterisk denotes an unattested form, but ek was attested in the Elder Futhark inscriptions (in some cases notably showing the variant eka; see also ek erilaz).
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