Template:Early Modern English personal pronouns (table)
Appearance
Nominative | Objective | Genitive | Possessive | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1st Person | singular | I | me | my / mine[1] | mine |
plural | we | us | our | ours | |
2nd Person | singular informal | thou | thee | thy / thine[1] | thine |
plural or formal singular | ye | you | your | yours | |
3rd Person | singular | he / she / it | him / her / it | his / her / his (its)[2] | his / hers / his (its)[2] |
plural | they | them | their / theyr[3] | theirs |
- a b In a deliberately archaic style, the possessive forms are used as the genitive before words beginning with a vowel sound (for example, thine eyes) similar to how an is used instead of a in an eye. This practice is followed irregularly in the King James Bible but is more regular in earlier literature, such as the Middle 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 with an archaic plural for eyes 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 the 1611 King James Bible (Leviticus 25:5).
- Theyr was sometimes used as the gentive form of they. "Theyr" appears in the famous soliloquy To be, or not to be in the Second Quarto of Hamlet by William Shakespeare as theyr currents.