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Pronouns

Most pronouns are declined by number, case and gender; in the plural form most pronouns have only one form for all genders. Additionally, Old English pronouns reserve the dual form (which is specifically for talking about groups of two things, for example "we two" or "you two" or "they two"). These were uncommon even then, but remained in use throughout the period.

First Person

Case

Singular

Plural

Dual

Nominative

ic, īc

wit

Accusative

mec, mē

ūsic, ūs

uncit, unc

Genitive

mīn

ūre

uncer

Dative

ūs

unc

Second Person

Case

Singular

Plural

Dual

Nominative

þū

git

Accusative

þēc, þē

ēowic, ēow

incit, inc

Genitive

þīn

ēower

incer

Dative

þē

ēow

inc

Third Person

Case

Singular

Plural

Masc.

Neut.

Fem.

Nominative

hit

hēo

hiē m., hēo f.

Accusative

hine

hit

hīe

hiē m., hīo f.

Genitive

his

his

hire

hiera m., heora f.

Dative

him

him

hire

him

Many of the forms above bear strong resemblances to their contemporary English language equivalents: for instance in the genitive case ēowerbecame "your", ūre became "our", mīn became "mine".

Post-Conquest English inherits its pronouns from Old English, 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

Subject

Object

Possessive

Subject

Object

Possessive

First

I

me

mi(n)

we

us

oure

Second

þou/thou

þee/thee

þy/thy

ye

you

your

Third

Impersonal

hit

it/him

his

he þey/they

hem þem/them

hir þeir/their

Masculine

he

him

his

Feminine

sche

hire

hir

The Old English Numeral.     It is obvious that all Indo-European languages have the general trend of transformation from the synthetic (or inflectional) stage to the analytic one. At least for the latest 1,000 years this trend could be observed in all branches of the family.

The level of this analitization process in each single language can be estimated by several features, their presence or absence in the language. One of them is for sure the declension of the numerals.

In Proto-Indo-European all numerals, both cardinal and ordinal, were declined, as they derived on a very ancient stage from nouns or adjectives, originally being a declined part of speech. There are still language groups within the family with decline their numerals: among them, Slavic and Baltic are the most typical samples. They practically did not suffer any influence of the analytic processes. But all other groups seem to have been influenced somehow. Ancient Italic and Hellenic languages left the declension only for the first four cardinal pronouns (from 1 to 4), the same with ancient Celtic.

The Old English language preserves this system of declension only for three numerals. It is therefore much easier to learn, though not for English speakers I guess - Modern English lacks declension at all.

Here is the list of the cardinal numerals:   

án

20 twentig

twá

21 twentig ond án 

þríe

30 þrítig

féower

40 féowertig

fíf

50 fíftig

six, syx, siex

60 siextig

seofon, syofn

70 siofontig

eahta

80 eahtatig

nigon

90 nigontig

10 tien, týn

100 hundtéontig, hund, hundred

11 endlefan

110 hundælleftig

12 twelf

120 hundtwelftig

13 þríotíene

200 tú hund

14 féowertíene

1000 þúsend

15 fíftíene...

2000 tú þúsendu

And here is the declension of some of them:

án is declined just like a strong adjective, can be only singular, but has masculine, neuter and feminine genders. It is the source of the future indefinite article 'a, an' in Modern English. So 'a house' in fact means "one house", here -n disappeared before a consonant. When at school, many of us thought that 'an' derived from 'a' and it appeares vice versa.

twá:         So the genders have differences only in nominative and accusative cases, and indirect cases (genitive and dative) have common forms for all three genders. No number can be changed for it, and originally this numeral was dual, which seems natural.

Strange is the following: while in the case of "two" the Modern English lost masculine and neuter forms and picked up the feminine one for use ('two' < twá), here we have another case, when the feminine and neuter were forgotten, and today's three comes directly from the masculine þríe.

And the last is the numeral begen, bú, bá (both) which is declined the same way as twá and is also dual. 

Ordinal numerals  use the suffix -ta or -þa, etymologically a common Indo-European one (*-to-).   

forma, fyresta

15 fíftéoþa

óþer, æfterra

16 sixtéoþa

þridda, þirda

17 siofontéoþa

féorþa

18 eahtatéoþa

fífta

19 nigontéoþa

siexta, syxta

20 twentigoþa

siofoþa

30 þrittigoþa

eahtoþa

40 féowertigoþa

nigoþa

50 fíftigoþa

10 téoþa

100 hundtéontiogoþa

11 endlefta

12 twelfta

13 þreotéoþa

14 féowertéoþa

The two variants for the word "first" actually mean different attributes: forma is translated as "forward", and fyresta is "the farthest", "the first". Again double variants for the second nominal mean respectively "the other" and "the following".

Mainly according to Old English texts ordinal numerals were used with the demonstrative pronoun þá before them. This is where the definite article in 'the first', 'the third' comes from. To say "the 22nd", for example, you should combine the following: either twá and twenigoþa (two and twentieth), or óþer éac twentigum (second with twenty). So the order is different from the modern English, but instead closer to Modern German where "the 22nd" sounds like zwei und zwanzig (two and twenty).

At all, it is easy to notice that the words in English became much shorter, and therefore simpler in pronunciation and learning. It is much easier to pronounce "hundredth" than hundtéontiogoþa, "fourth" than féowertéoþa. Modetrn English acquired words mainly having one or two syllables, but this was not the rule in the Old English period.   Middle English. This part of speech develops with some changes. They are no longer declined and lose the category of gender. Another innovation, or addition to the OE is the word millioun of French origin. Ordinal numerals developed the suffix –th. And the borrowing from French second replaced the former English æfter.

The Old English Adverb.

Just some words about the adverbs.

They can be either primary (original adverbs) or derive from the adjectives. In fact, adverbs appeared in the language rather late, and eraly Proto-Indo-European did not use them, but later some auxiliary nouns and pronouns losing their declension started to play the role of adverbial modifiers. That's how thew primary adverbs emerged.

In Old English the basic primary adverbs were the following ones:  þa (then)  þonne (then)  þæ'r (there)  þider (thither)   (now)  hér (here)  hider (hither)  heonan (hence)  sóna (soon)  oft (often)  eft (again)  swá (so)  hwílum (sometimes).

Secondary adverbs originated from the instrumental singular of the neuter adjectives of strong declension. They all add the suffix -ewide (widely), déope (deeply), fæste(fast), hearde (hard). Another major sugroup of them used the suffixes -líc, -líce from more complexed adjectives: bealdlíce (boldly), freondlíce (in a friendly way).

Adverbs, as well as adjectives, had their degrees of comparison:

wíde - wídor - wídost (widely - more widely - most widely)  long - leng (long - longer)  feorr (far) - fierr  sófte (softly) - séft  éaþe (easily) - íeþ  wel (well) - betre - best  yfele (badly) - wiers, wyrs - wierst  micele (much) - máre - mæ'st 

In middle English adverbs changed mostly phonetically. At this time there appears a new and very productive way of forming adverbs – suffix –ly.