English personal pronouns

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The personal pronouns of English can have various forms according to gender, number, person, and case. Modern English is a language with very little inflection, to the point where some authors describe it as analytic, but its system of personal pronouns has preserved part of the inflectional complexity of Old English.

Contents 1 Basic personal pronouns of modern English 2 Full list of personal pronouns 2.1 I and me 2.2 My and mine, thy and thine 2.3 Ourself 2.4 You and Ye 2.5 Thou 2.6 Other second person pronouns 2.7 His and its 2.8 Third person plural 3 See also 4 References

[edit] Basic personal pronouns of modern English

The basic personal pronouns of modern English are shown below. Possessive pronouns and adjectives are used to show possession.

Personal pronouns in standard Modern English

		Singular			Plural
		Subject	Object	Reflexive	Subject	Object	Reflexive
First		I	me	myself	we	us	ourselves
Second		you	you	yourself	you	you	yourselves
Third	Masculine	he	him	himself	they	them	themselves
	Feminine	she	her	herself
	Neuter	it	it	itself

[edit] Full list of personal pronouns

The following table shows the full list of English personal pronouns, including archaic and dialectal forms. Reflexive pronouns are used as the object of a sentence when it coincides with the subject.

			personal pronoun			possessive pronoun	possessive determiner
			subjective	objective	reflexive
first-person	singular		I	me	myself	mine	my
	plural		we	us	ourselves ourself	ours	our
second-person	singular	standard (archaic formal)	you, ya (IPA: /jə/)	you, ya (IPA: /jə/)	yourself	yours	your
		archaic informal	thou	thee	thyself	thine	thy
	plural	standard	you, ya (IPA: /jə/)	you, ya (IPA: /jə/)	yourselves	yours	your
		archaic	ye	you	yourselves	yours	your
		nonstandard	you guys you all y'all youse youse guys you-uns	you guys you all y'all youse youse guys you-uns yous yis yinz	yourselves y'all's selves	you(r) guys's y'all's yous's	you(r) guys's y'all's
third-person	singular	masculine	he	him	himself	his	his
		feminine	she	her	herself	hers	her
		neuter	it	it	itself	-	its
		generic/epicene (nonstandard)	they	them	themself	theirs	their
	plural		they	them, 'em (IPA: /əm/)	themselves	theirs	their

For further archaic forms, and information on the evolution of the personal pronouns of English, see Old English pronouns.

[edit] I and me

• In modern English, me is often used as the predicative of the copula. In colloquial speech, it is also frequently used as a subject, when the subject is the speaker himself or herself in certain kinds of sentences. See It is I/It is me for a more detailed discussion.

[edit] My and mine, thy and thine

• Historically, my comes from a reduction of mine, and well after the emergence of my, mine continued to be used instead of my before words beginning with vowel sounds. Similarly with thy and thine.

[edit] Ourself

• Ourself is used when we is semantically singular as in the royal we, the editorial we, and the nurse's we, e.g. "We seem a bit displeased with ourself, do not we?"

[edit] You and Ye

• Historically, you was an object pronoun, and ye was its subject counterpart; today, you fills both roles in Standard English, though some dialects use ye for the two roles, and some use ye as an apocopated or clitic form of you.
• The only common distinction between singular and plural you is in the reflexive and emphatic forms.
• You and its variants can sometimes be used in a generic sense. See Generic you.

[edit] Thou

• Sometime between 1600 and 1800, the various second-person singular forms of thou began to pass out of common usage in most places, except in poetry, archaic-style literature, public prayer, and descriptions of other languages' pronouns. Thou refers to one person who is familiar, as in a friend or family, and also for a person who is being insulted or disrespected (since the formal form implies a degree of respect). Also, as in other European languages, the familiar form is used (presumably as for family and intimates) when speaking to God in prayer. Today almost all have disappeared from Standard English. A few dialects retain them.
• Thou still exists in parts of England and Scotland, and in some Christian religious communities. See Thou, for further information.

[edit] Other second person pronouns

• While formal Standard English uses you for both singular and plural, many dialects use various special forms for the plural, such as y'all (short for "you all"), you guys, yinz (short for "you ones"), and yous (also spelled youse). Corresponding reflexive and possessive pronouns are often used as well.
• In Scotland, yous is often used for the second person plural (particularly in the Central Belt area). However, in some parts of the country, ye is used for the plural you. In older times and in some other places today, ye is the nominative case and you is the accusative case. Some English dialects generalised ye, while standard English generalised you. Some dialects use ye as a clipped or weak form of you.

[edit] His and its

• Historically, his was the possessive of it as well of he; nowadays it has been completely supplanted by its.

[edit] Third person plural

• Historically the forms they, their, and them are of Scandinavian origin (from the Viking invasions and settlement in northeastern England during the Danelaw period from the 9th to the 11th centuries).^[1]
• The third person plural form 'em is believed to be a survival of the late Old English form heom, which appears as hem in Chaucer, and has apparently lost its aspiration due to being used as an unstressed form.
• The forms of they are also sometimes used with grammatically or semantically singular antecedents, though it is a matter of some dispute whether and when such usage is acceptable. When this is the case, they take a plural verb, but themselves with a singular sense is often changed to themself.
• Although grammarians and usage writers often condemn the use of the singular they when gender is unknown or unimportant, this is often used, both in speech and in writing. In fact, a consistent pattern of usage can be traced at least as far back as Shakespeare, and possibly even back to Middle English. It avoids awkward constructions like he or she. This usage is authorised and preferred by the Australian Government Manual of Style for official usage in government documents. See Singular they.

[edit] See also

• Disjunctive pronoun
• Generic antecedents
• Gender-neutral pronoun
• Gender-specific pronoun
• Old English pronouns
• One (pronoun)
• Personal pronoun
• Wiktionary table of personal pronouns

v • d • e Modern English personal pronouns I · he · she · it · one · we · you · they :See also: Modern English and personal pronouns

[edit] References