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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 ...
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 they them their theirs
Personal pronouns may also take different forms depending on number (usually singular or plural), grammatical or natural gender, case, and formality. The term "personal" is used here purely to signify the grammatical sense; personal pronouns are not limited to people and can also refer to animals and objects (as the English personal pronoun it ...
me / mi me: min / minen [pl.] my: min / mire / minre mine: min one / mi seluen myself: Second þou / þu / tu / þeou you : þe you (thee) þi / ti your (thy) þin / þyn yours (thine) þeself / þi seluen yourself (thyself) Third Masculine he he: him [a] / hine [b] him: his / hisse / hes his: his / hisse his: him-seluen himself: Feminine sche ...
The plural may be used to emphasise the plurality of the attribute, especially in British English but very rarely in American English: a careers advisor, a languages expert. The plural is also more common with irregular plurals for various attributions: women killers are women who kill, whereas woman killers are those who kill women.
In the grammar of several languages, plural forms tend to be perceived as deferential and more polite than singular forms. [ citation needed ] In diplomatic letters, such as letters of credence , it is customary for monarchs to use the singular first-person ( I , me , my ) when writing to other monarchs, while the majestic plural is used in ...
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).
The English pronouns form a relatively small category of words in Modern English whose primary semantic function is that of a pro-form for a noun phrase. [1] Traditional grammars consider them to be a distinct part of speech, while most modern grammars see them as a subcategory of noun, contrasting with common and proper nouns.