CHAPTER XII. PRONOUNS. 142. ON the nature of the Pronoun see p. 80, § 62. 143. The classes of Pronouns are: (1) Personal Pronouns, (2) Demonstrative Pronouns, (3) Interrogative Pronouns, (4) Relative Pronouns, (5) Indefinite Pronouns. I. Personal Pronouns. (1) SUBSTANTIVE PRONOUNS. There 144. The personal pronouns have no distinction of gender. are two persons: the person who speaks, called the first person; the person spoken to, the second person. (a) Inflexion of the Pronoun of the First Person.1 145. In I the guttural has disappeared: it is radical and exists in the allied languages, as Sansk. ah-am; Gr. èy; Lat. ego; Goth. ik. By noticing the oblique cases we see there are two stems, ah (ic) and ma, of the first person. 146. In O.E. we find the pronoun agglutinated to a verb, as Ichabbe = Ich habbe (I have); Ichille Ich + wille (I will), &c. In the provincial dialects of the South of England it still exists; cp. in Shakespeare's King Lear. I Those marked thus (*) are later forms. 66 chill" = 147. Me (dative) is still in use (1) before impersonal verbs, methinks it appears to me; me seems, me lists; (2) after interjections, as, woe is me, well is him; (3) to express the indirect object, to me, or for me.1 Me for me. It is often a mere expletive in Elizabethan writers, and no doubt the original force of the pronoun was forgotten. See the dialogue between Petruchio and his servant Grumio, in Taming of Shrew, i. 2 "Pet. Villain, I say, knock me here soundly. "Gru. Knock you here, sir? Why, sir, what am I, sir, that I should knock you here, sir? "Pet. Villain, I say, knock me at this gate, and rap me well, or I'll knock your knave's pate. "Gru. My master is grown quarrelsome. I should knock you first, and then I know after who comes by the worst. "Hortensio. How now, what's the matter? "Gru. Look you, sir, he bid me knock him, and rap him soundly, sir. Was it fit for a servant to use his master so?" = In O.E. we find the dative construed before the verb to be and an adjective, as me were leof= it would be lief (preferable) to me. Traces of this idiom are to be found in Shakespeare, as: Me had rather (Rich. II. iii. 3) = O.E. me were lefer I had liever. Shakespeare has also: you were best it were best for you. The dative me has lost a suffix mi-s, Ger. mi-r. = (sign of dative): cp. Goth. The acc. me = mec: cp. Goth. mik; Ger. mich. 148. We Goth. weis; Ger. wir; Sansk. vayam, where w, like Sansk. va, represents an m; the suffix -s (-7) is a relic of an old demonstrative sma joined to the first pronoun: cp. Sansk. asmê. Gr. -μes, so that (originally) we = I that (or he). 149. Us (dat.): Goth. unsis; Ger. uns. as usual before s in Old English. The letter n disappears U = an older a (= ma), as in Sanskrit a-sma-byam: -s (ns) represents the particle (sma), so that the case-ending has disappeared altogether. Us (acc.): Goth. u-nsi-s; Ger. uns; Sansk. a-smâ-n. Us then = muns = mans = masm. 150. The O. E. had a dual number for the first and second persons, which went out of use towards the close of the thirteenth century. "He plucked me ope his doublet.”—Julius Cæsar, i. 2. 152. Thou: Goth. thu; Gr. σú, rú; Lat. tu; Sansk. tva-m. The stem is tva, which is weakened to tu and yu. 153. The use of the plural for the singular was established as early as the beginning of the fourteenth century. Thou, as in Shakespeare's time, was (1) the pronoun of affection towards friends, (2)good-humoured superiority to servants, and (3) contempt or anger to strangers. It had, however, already fallen somewhat into disuse; and, being regarded as archaic, was naturally adopted (4) in the higher poetic style and in the language of solemn prayer.-ABBOTT. 154. Thee (dat.): Goth. thu-s; Gr. ool; Lat. tibi; Sansk. tubhyam. See remarks on me (dat. ). Thee (acc.): Goth. thuk; Ger. dich; Gr. Té, σé; Lat. se; Sansk. tvâm. See remarks on me (acc.). 155. Ye: Goth. ju-t; Gr. vueîs; Lat. vos; Sansk. yusm?, yûyam. The Sanskrit yu-smê tu + sma = thou and he.1 The dual = git originally signified thou + two = you two. The confusion between ye and you did not exist in Old English. Ye was always used as a nom., and you as a dat. or acc. In the English Bible the distinction is very carefully observed, but in the dramatists of the Elizabethan period there is a very loose use of the two forms. Not only is you used as nominative, but ye is used as an accusative.2 "Vain pomp and glory of the world, I hate ye."-SHAKESPEARE. You (dat.): Goth. izwi-s; O. Sax. iu; Gr. iuîv; Lat. vo-bis ; Sansk. yu-sma-bhyam and vas. You (acc.): Goth. izwis; O. Sax. iu; Gr. vμâs; Lat. vos; Sansk. yusmán (vas). I That is, sma= he, that, this, &c. 2 I am inclined to look upon the origin of ye for you in the rapid and careless pronunciation of the latter word, so that, after all, the ye in the above extracts should be written y' (= you); ye or you may be changed into ee: cp. look ee = look ye. In English you has been developed out of the O. E. eow, which represents yu tu, the stem of the second personal pronoun; the case suffix having wholly disappeared. (c) Demonstrative Pronoun of the Third Person. 156. He, She, It. This pronoun is sometimes, but incorrectly, called a personal pronoun: it has distinction of gender, like other demonstrative pronouns in O.E., which the personal pronouns have not.1 Nom. They Gen. Dat. Them PLURAL. hi, heo, hii,* þa,* þai,* þei.* hira, heora, here, her, þar,* þair.* 157. The Old English pronouns were formed from only one stem, hi; but the modern English contains the stems hi, sa, and tha. He. For he we sometimes find in Old English ha, a (not confined always to one number or gender= he, she, it, they). 66 It occurs in Shakespeare, as "a must needs" (2 Hen. VI. iv. 2) ; quoth 'a; and is also common in other old writers, as-" has a eaten bull-beefe" (S. Rowlands); see how a frownes" (Ib.). Hi-m (dat.) contains a real dative suffix m, which is also found in the dative of adjectives and demonstrative pronouns.2 1 The demonstrative character of this pronoun is seen in such expressions as, "What is he at the gate ?" (Shakespeare); "He of the bottomless pit" (Milton, Areopagitica); "hii of Denemarch" (Robert of Gloucester); "thai of Lorne, thai of the Castel" (Barbour); "they in France (Shakespeare); "them of Greece" (North's Plutarch). Those marked thus (*) are later forms. 2 Him was also the dative of it, and we often find it applied to inanimate things in the later periods of the language. Hi-m (acc.). This was originally a dative form, which in the twelfth century (in Lazamon and Orm.) began to replace the accusative. Hi-ne. The old accusative was sometimes shortened to hin and in, and still exists in the South of England under the form en, as— "Up I sprung, drow'd [threw] down my candle, and douted [put out] en; and hadn't blunk [spark] o' fire to teen en again.”(Devonshire Dialect.) 158. She, in the twelfth century, in the Northern dialects, replaced the old form heo. The earliest instance of its use is found in the A.-Sax. Chronicle.1 After all, it is only the substitution of one demonstrative for another, for she is the feminine of the definite article, which in O.E. was seo or sia; from the latter of these probably comes she. In the Lancashire dialect the old feminine is still preserved under the form ho, pronounced something like he in her. Her (dat.) contains a true dative (fem.) suffix, -r or -re. Her (acc.) was originally dative, and, as in the case of him, has replaced an accusative; the old acc. was hi, heo. 159. It has lost an initial guttural.2 The t is an old neuter suffix (cp. tha-t, wha-t) cognate with d in Latin-illu-d, istu-d, quo-d, quid. It is often a kind of indeterminate pronoun in O. E.; it was a man there was a man; it arn = there are. It (dat.) has replaced the true form him. For the history of the word his see Adjective Pronouns. 160. They. In the thirteenth century this form came into use in the North of England, and replaced hi or heo; the earliest forms of it are be33, thei, tha. The Southern dialect kept up the old form hi or heo nearly to the end of the fourteenth century. They is the nom. plural of the definite article, O. E. tha, probably modified by Scandinavian influence. 3 11140 (Stephen). "Dær efter scæ ferde ofer sæ." In the thirteenth century, the ordinary form of she is sco, found in Northern writers; sche (sca) is a Midland modification of it. 2 We find this h disappearing as early as the twelfth century (as in Orm.). 3 The O. Norse forms bear a greater resemblance to they, their, and them than the O.E. ones. O. Norse thei-r, theirra, theim. The Midland and Southern dialects changed O.E. tha to tho, not to thei or they. |