Old English Pronouns Essay

1. Introduction

The use of pronouns has always been of high importance for the indication of hierarchies and structures in societies throughout history. Pronouns also function as a signal of whether there are one or more addressees in written language. When it comes to the second-person pronoun, nowadays there is only one form that is used in the English language, regardless of hierarchy or number of conversation partners. This pronoun is “you“, which is defined as “the one or ones being addressed — used as the pronoun of the second person singular or plural in any grammati- cal relation except that of a possessive“ (Merriam-Webster). This was not always the case, simi- lar to many other languages, there were a number of different second-person pronouns in the Old English and Middle English periods, those pronouns distinguished between case, person, gender and number of

Baugh & Cable 2002: 59). The number of second-person pronouns was then limited in the Early Modern English (EMod E) period from 1500 to 1710 so that the word „you“ that is used today both as singular and plural form of the second-person pronoun in addition to its nominative, objective, genitive and possessive forms was used alongside the word „thou“ and its respective forms. Whereas the second-person pronouns with „t“ (t-forms), namely „thou“ ,„thee“, „thine“ and “thy“, were used for singular informal references, the y-forms „you“ ,“ye“, “your“ and “yours“ were used for plural references and also as the polite form of address in singular references. Those applications could also vary depending on the type of writ- ten or spoken text. To explain the semantic distinction of those pronouns in the EMod E period, I am going to subsequently introduce the basic concepts that have to be considered. Afterwards, I am going to give examples of two texts from this period as well as describe and compare the characteristics of second-person pronoun use according to their