30. Pronouns

In Early Modern English, there were two second-person personal pronouns: thou, the informal singular pronoun, and ye, which was both the plural pronoun and the formal singular pronoun (like modern French tu and vous or the German du and Sie). (Thou was already falling out of use in the Early Modern English period, but remained customary for addressing God and certain other solemn occasions, and sometimes for addressing inferiors.) Like other personal pronouns, thou and ye had different forms depending on their grammatical case; specifically, objective form of thou was thee, its possessive forms were thy and thine, and its reflexive or emphatic form was thyself, while ye's objective form was you, its possessive forms were your and yours, and its reflexive or emphatic forms were yourself and yourselves.

In other respects, the pronouns were much the same as today. One difference is that, much as a becomes an before a vowel, my and thy became mine and thine before vowels as well; hence, mine eyes, thine uncle, and so on.

Pronouns

The King James Version of the Holy Bible intentionally preserved in Early Modern English archaic pronouns and verb endings that had already begun to fall out of spoken use

In Early Modern English, there were two second-person personal pronouns: thou, the informal singular pronoun, and ye, which was both the plural pronoun and the formal singular pronoun (like modern French tu and vous or the German du and Sie). (Thou was already falling out of use in the Early Modern English period, but remained customary for addressing God and certain other solemn occasions, and sometimes for addressing inferiors.) Like other personal pronouns, thou and ye had different forms depending on their grammatical case; specifically, the objective form of thou was thee, its possessive forms were thy and thine, and its reflexive or emphatic form was thyself, while the objective form of ye was you, its possessive forms were your and yours, and its reflexive or emphatic forms were yourself and yourselves.

The pronoun, "it," and its possessive form, "its," were not available to sixteenth-century authors, who had to choose from "he," "she," "his," "hers." The possessive was also lacking, for instance, John Lyly's most famous work is entitled "Euphues His England" since "Euphues' England" was not yet an option.

In other respects, the pronouns were much the same as today. One difference is that, much as a becomes an before a vowel, my and thy became mine and thine before vowels as well; hence, mine eyes, thine uncle, and so on.

a b In a deliberately archaic style, the possessive forms are used as the genitive before words beginning with a vowel sound (eg thine eyes) similar to how an is used instead of a in a similar situation. This practice is irregularly followed in the King James Bible, but is more regular in earlier literature, such as the Early Modern English texts of Geoffrey Chaucer. Otherwise, "my" and "thy" is attributive (my/thy goods,) and "mine" and "thine" are predicative (they are mine/thine). Shakespeare pokes fun at this custom when the character Bottom says "mine eyen" in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

a b From the early Early Modern English period up until the 17th century, his was the possessive of the third person neuter it as well as of the 3rd person masculine he. Later, the neologism its became common. "Its" appears only once in

Shakespeare's writings are universally associated with Early Modern English.

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