Главная страница | Контакты | Случайная страница Автомобили Астрономия Биология География Дом и сад Другие языки Другое Информатика История Культура Литература Логика Математика Медицина Металлургия Механика Образование Охрана труда Педагогика Политика Право Психология Религия Риторика Социология Спорт Строительство Технология Туризм Физика Философия Финансы Химия Черчение Экология Экономика Электроника

The development of personal pronouns in the history of English.

Personal Pronouns possessed (and still do) a very vivid Indo-European feature – suppletivity (i.e. they build their forms with the help of different roots (see also Lecture 4)).

Personal pronouns in OE changed in Gender, Number, Case, Person:

Later the following changes happened to the personal pronouns (some of them are marked with * in the table above so that one can trace the connection easily):

1. Gender is still preserved (he, she, it) in ModE but is often denied by scholars because it is expressed lexically and practically has nothing to do with grammar.

2. Cases: -In ME the Genitive Case turned into a new class of pronouns – Possessive Pronouns (e.g. ModE I (pers.) – mine (possess.); you – yours, he – his, she – her, etc.); -The Dative and the Accusative Cases fell together and formed the Objective Case. Thus in ME there were only two cases left in the personal pronouns – Nominative and Objective (e.g. ModE I (Nom) – me (Obj); he – him, she – her, etc.).

3. Number. Dual forms disappeared in ME. In NE the category of Number disappeared in the 2^nd person of the personal pronouns (see the explanation below).

4. 3^rd person.As far as in the Early ME many forms in the 3^rd person coincided phonetically and often caused confusion and difficulties in communication, the following changes occurred:

T hus in NE the category of Number disappeared in the 2^nd person of the personal pronouns.

The Development of the Adjective