Old English Pronouns

1. Old English Pronouns

Выполнила
Петривная Анастасия
ПП/с-18-2-2

2.

Types of pronouns
in Old English:
1)Personal
2)Possessive
3)Demonstrative
4)Interrogative
5)Definite
6)Indefinite
7)Negative
8)Relative

3.

Personal pronouns
As in Gothic, there were singular, plural and
dual pronouns (only for the 1st and 2nd persons).
They could be accompanied by the pronoun self
(seolf, sylf) (sometimes it was used without a
personal pronoun). They had four cases:
Nominative, Genitive, Dative, and Accusative. The
Genitive case gave the forms of the Modern
English possessive pronouns.

4.

Personal pronouns

5.

Possessive pronouns
This type is derived from the genitive case of
the personal pronouns.
There were two types of declension: pronouns
mīn, þīn, ūre, ēower, uncer, and incer decline
like strong adjectives, showing the case and
gender corresponding to that of the noun which
they described; pronouns his, hire, and hiera
were unchanged. Also, there were the reflexive
pronoun sīn, which was also declined as a strong
adjective.
After the
words, mīn, þīn, sīn, ūre, ēower, uncer, incer, h
is, hire, and hira you will have weak adjective
declensions.

6.

Possessive pronouns

7.

Demonstrative pronouns
There were two demonstrative pronouns: sē, which
could function as both 'the' or 'that',
and þes for 'this'.
Modern English 'that' descends from the neuter
nominative/accusative form, and 'the' from the
plural nominative/accusative form. The feminine
nominative form was probably the source of Modern
English 'she’.

8.

Demonstrative pronouns

9.

Interrogative pronouns
The pronouns hwā ‘who’ and hwæt ‘what’ agreed
with the gender of the noun to which they
refered, whether masculine/feminine, or neuter.
Since there's only singular, that serves for the
plural as well.
The interrogative hwilc ‘which of many’ and
hwæðer ‘which of two’ were declined as strong
adjectives.

10.

Interrogative pronouns

11.

Definite pronouns
There were the pronouns ᵹehwā ‘every’ (declined
as the interrogative hwā), ᵹehwilc ‘each’,
ᵹehwæt - ‘anything’ or ‘everything’(declined just
the interrogate pronoun hwæt).
ǣþᵹer ‘either’, ǣlc ‘each’, swilc ‘such’
(declined as strong adjective), sē ilca ‘the
same’ (declined as a weak adjective).

12.

Indefinite pronouns
The indefinite pronouns sum ‘some’ and ǣniᵹ ‘any’
were declined like a strong adjectives.

13.

Negative pronouns
Included pronouns nān and nǣniᵹ (both with
meaning ‘no’, ‘none’)and declined as strong
adjectives.

14.

Relative pronouns
They included the most popular pronoun þe and
sēþe, which consisted of the demonstrative sē and
relative þe (sē changed according to gender,
number, and case; þe remained unchanged). The
pronoun sē itself was also used as a relative
pronoun (however, it could be translated as a
demonstrative or relative pronoun).