Pronouns

After the Conquest, English retained Old English pronouns, with the exception of the third person plural, a borrowing from Old Norse (the original Old English form clashed with the third person singular and was eventually dropped):

Personal pronouns in Middle English
	Singular	Plural
Nominative	Oblique	Genitive	Nominative	Oblique	Genitive
First	ik / ich / I	me	my(n)	we	us	oure
Second	þou / thou	þee / thee	þy(n) / thy(n)	ȝe / ye	ȝow / you	ȝower / your
Third	Impersonal	hit	hit / him	his	he þei / they	hem þem / them	her þeir / their
Masculine	he	him	his
Feminine	ȝho / scho / sche	hire	hire

 

 

Here are the Old English pronouns.

OldEnglishpronouns
	Nominative	IPA	Accusative	Dative	Genitive
1st	Singular	iċ	[ɪtʃ]	mec / mē	mē	mīn
Dual	wit	[wɪt]	uncit	unc	uncer
Plural	wē	[weː]	ūsic	ūs	ūser / ūre
2nd	Singular	þū	[θuː]	þec / þē	þē	þīn
Dual	ġit	[jɪt]	incit	inc	incer
Plural	ġē	[jeː]	ēowic	ēow	ēower
3rd	Singular	Masculine	hē	[heː]	hine	him	his
Neuter	hit	[hɪt]	hit	him	his
Feminine	hēo	[heːo]	hīe	hiere	hiere
Plural	hīe	[hiːə]	hīe	heom	heora

The first and second person pronouns in Old English survived into Middle English largely unchanged, with only minor spelling variations. In the third person, the masculine accusative singular became 'him'. The feminine form was replaced by a form of the demonstrative that developed into 'sche', but unsteadily—'heyr' remained in some areas for a long time. The lack of a strong standard written form between the 13th and the 15th centuries makes these changes hard to map.

The overall trend was the gradual reduction in the number of different case endings. The accusative case disappeared, but the six other cases were partly retained in personal pronouns, as in he, him, his.