Evolution of the English pronouns

Old English pronouns fell roughly under the same main classes as modern pronouns: personal, demonstrative, interrogative and indefinite. As for the other groups – relative, possessive and reflexive – they were as yet not fully developed and were not always distinctly separated from the four main classes. The grammatical categories of the pronouns were either similar to those of nouns or corresponded to those of adjectives.

Interrogative pronouns had a four-case paradigm. Some interrogative pronouns were used as a separate interrogative word.

Masculine/feminine (person)

Neuter (non-person)

First person personal pronouns. Old English personal pronouns had three persons, three numbers in the 1^st and 2^nd p. and three genders in the 3^rd p.

Singular

Plural

Second person personal pronouns

n.b. þ is a letter from Old English, roughly corresponding to th.

Old and Middle English singular to the Modern English archaic informal

Old and Middle English plural to the archaic formal to the modern general

Formal and informal forms of the second person singular and plural

Old English also had a separate dual, ȝit ("ye two") etcetera; however, no later forms derive from it.

Third person personal pronouns

Feminine singular

Masculine singular

Neuter singular

Plural

The origin of the modern forms is generally thought to have been a borrowing from Old Norse forms þæir, þæim, þæira.

The two different roots co-existed for some time, although currently the only common remnant is the shortened form 'em.

1. The evolution of the English numerals.

It is obvious that all Indo-European languages have the general trend of transformation from the synthetic (or inflectional) stage to the analytic one. At least for the latest 1,000 years this trend could be observed in all branches of the family.

The level of this analitization process in each single language can be estimated by several features, their presence or absence in the language. One of them is for sure the declension of the numerals.

In Proto-Indo-European all numerals, both cardinal and ordinal, were declined, as they derived on a very ancient stage from nouns or adjectives, originally being a declined part of speech. There are still language groups within the family with decline their numerals: among them, Slavic and Baltic are the most typical samples. They practically did not suffer any influence of the analytic processes. But all other groups seem to have been influenced somehow. Ancient Italic and Hellenic languages left the declension only for the first four cardinal pronouns (from 1 to 4), the same with ancient Celtic.

The Old English language preserves this system of declension only for three numerals. It is therefore much easier to learn, though not for English speakers I guess - Modern English lacks declension at all.

Here is the list of the cardinal numerals:

1 án 20 twentig

2 twá 21 twentig ond án

3 þríe 30 þrítig

4 féower 40 féowertig

5 fíf 50 fíftig

6 six, syx, siex 60 siextig

7 seofon, syofn 70 siofontig

8 eahta 80 eahtatig

9 nigon 90 nigontig

10 tien, týn 100 hundtéontig, hund, hundred

11 endlefan 110 hundælleftig

12 twelf 120 hundtwelftig

13 þríotíene 200 tú hund

14 féowertíene 1000 þúsend

15 fíftíene... 2000 tú þúsendu

And here is the declension of some of them:

1 án is declined just like a strong adjective, can be only singular, but has masculine, neuter and feminine genders. It is the source of the future indefinite article 'a, an' in Modern English. So 'a house' in fact means "one house", here -n disappeared before a consonant. When at school, many of us thought that 'an' derived from 'a' and it appeares vice versa.

2 twá:

Masc. Neut. Fem.

N twegen tú, twá twá

G twégea, twégra

D twæ'm, twám

A twegen tú, twá twá

So the genders have differences only in nominative and accusative cases, and indirect cases (genitive and dative) have common forms for all three genders. No number can be changed for it, and originally this numeral was dual, which seems natural.

3 þríe:

Masc. Neut. Fem.

N þríe, þrí, þrý þrío, þréo þrío, þréo

G þríora, þréora

D þrím

A þríe, þrí, þrý þrío, þréo þrío, þréo

A typical i-stem noun. Strange is the following: while in the case of "two" the Modern English lost masculine and neuter forms and picked up the feminine one for use ('two' < twá), here we have another case, when the feminine and neuter were forgotten, and today's three comes directly from the masculine þríe.

And the last is the numeral begen, bú, bá (both) which is declined the same way as twá and is also dual.

Ordinal numerals use the suffix -ta or -þa, etymologically a common Indo-European one (*-to-).

1 forma, fyresta 15 fíftéoþa

2 óþer, æfterra 16 sixtéoþa

3 þridda, þirda 17 siofontéoþa

4 féorþa 18 eahtatéoþa

5 fífta 19 nigontéoþa

6 siexta, syxta 20 twentigoþa

7 siofoþa 30 þrittigoþa

8 eahtoþa 40 féowertigoþa

9 nigoþa 50 fíftigoþa

10 téoþa 100 hundtéontiogoþa

11 endlefta

12 twelfta

13 þreotéoþa

14 féowertéoþa

The two variants for the word "first" actually mean different attributes: forma is translated as "forward", and fyresta is "the farthest", "the first". Again double variants for the second nominal mean respectively "the other" and "the following".

Mainly according to Old English texts ordinal numerals were used with the demonstrative pronoun þá before them. This is where the definite article in 'the first', 'the third' comes from. To say "the 22nd", for example, you should combine the following: either twá and twenigoþa (two and twentieth), or óþer éac twentigum (second with twenty). So the order is different from the modern English, but instead closer to Modern German where "the 22nd" sounds like zwei und zwanzig (two and twenty).

At all, it is easy to notice that the words in English became much shorter, and therefore simpler in pronunciation and learning. It is much easier to pronounce "hundredth" than hundtéontiogoþa, "fourth" than féowertéoþa. Modetrn English acquired words mainly having one or two syllables, but this was not the rule in the Old English period.

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 3668