The subject of history of English

28. Pronouns in Middle English

All pronouns in Middle English with the exception of the personal ones lose the categories of gender and case, some lose their number.

We find the forms I or ich, with the growing frequency of the first variant, thou (just new spelling of Old English ðū), he (no visible changes); the feminine pronoun is found in variants he/she. Hit is reduced to it. We and ye in the plural did not change and neither did us and you. Scandinavian they/them penetrate into the language; but not simultaneously. By the end of the 14th the pronoun they was well established in the language, while the objective case of Old English pronoun hem persists.

The paradigm of personal pronouns now is :

Sg. N. ich/1 thou he she hit/it

D. me thee him hir him/hit/it

PI. N. we ye hi/they

D. us you hem/them

The tendency to use ye in addresing one person is already spreading.

A new class of pronouns appears - possesive pronouns:

1st person Singular min, myn /my plural: our

2nd person thin, thyn/thyyour

3rd person hir/her, his plural: hire/their

Only the context shows the real gender of the pronoun - when referring to living beings, it is masculine and neuter when it points to a lifeless thing

Demonstrative pronouns retain the category of number only (that - tho, thos; this - thes/thise), case and gender forms disappeared, and so the reduction in the number of forms of this class of pronouns is really significant - from 17 to two: ‘’This Palamon, whan he tho wordes herde’’ (This Palamon, when he heard those words...)

Interrogative pronouns change phonetically, the aspiration is weakened and in spelling the letters h and w change place: who what, whos whos, whom what.

The instrumental case of hwy changed into the adverb why.

Reflexive pronouns are formed from the possessive pronoun my/thy or the objective case of the third person personal pronoun him/hir/hem/them + self- himselfe, hirself, hemselven (later myself ourselves, yourself and themselves replaced native hemselven)

ǣʒðer, ǣtc, swilc, sum, ǣniʒ, nān changed their phonetic form and give the present- day either, each, such, any, none. Definite pronoun the same borrowed from Scandinavian replaces sē ilca, though occasionally we may find that ilke too, more often reduced to the form thilke. The article before the pronoun varies with the demostrative pronouns this and that. A new part of speech appears - the article. The pronoun was the real marker of the case of the noun. This, probably led to overuse of the demonstrative pronouns in Old English, and to weakening of their deictic function. In Middle English this weakened form of the demonstrative pronoun which signalled only the definiteness of the noun was supplemented by the weakened form of the numeral ān (one) and now was used to render the meaning of indefiniteness, a person or thing unknown or unmentioned. This part of speech contains only two words - the from reduced ðata and an, a from the numeral ān.