Lesson 77 - 82: Forms of Personal Pronouns

FORMS OF PERSONAL PRONOUNS.

77. Personal pronouns are inflected thus:-

	FIRST PERSON.
	Singular.	Plural.
Nom.	I	we
Poss.	mine, my	our, ours
Obj.	me	us
	SECOND PERSON.
	Singular.
	Old Form	Common Form.
Nom.	thou	you
Poss.	thine, thy	your, yours
Obj.	thee	you
	Plural.
Nom.	ye	you
Poss.	your, yours	your, yours
Obj.	you	you
	THIRD PERSON.
	Singular.
	Masc.	Fem.	Neut..
Nom.	he	she	it
Poss.	his	her, hers	its
Obj.	him	her	it
	Plur. of all Three.
Nom.	they
Poss.	their, theirs
Obj.	them

Remarks on These Forms.

First and second persons without gender.

78. It will be noticed that the pronouns of the first and second persons have no forms to distinguish gender. The speaker may be either male or female, or, by personification, neuter; so also with the person or thing spoken to.

Third person singular has gender.

But the third person has, in the singular, a separate form for each gender, and also for the neuter.

Old forms.

In Old English these three were formed from the same root; namely, masculine hē, feminine hēo, neuter hit.

The form hit (for it) is still heard in vulgar English, and hoo (for hēo) in some dialects of England.

The plurals were hī, heora, heom, in Old English; the forms they, their, them, perhaps being from the English demonstrative, though influenced by the cognate Norse forms.

Second person always plural in ordinary English.

79. Thou, thee, etc., are old forms which are now out of use in ordinary speech. The consequence is, that we have no singular pronoun of the second person in ordinary speech or prose, but make the plural you do duty for the singular. We use it with a plural verb always, even when referring to a single object.

Two uses of the old singulars.

80. There are, however, two modern uses of thou, thy, etc.:-

(1) In elevated style, especially in poetry; as,-

With thy clear keen joyance

Languor cannot be;

Shadow of annoyance

Never came near thee;

Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

"smcap">-Shelley.

(2) In addressing the Deity, as in prayers, etc.; for example,-

Oh, thou Shepherd of Israel, that didst comfort thy people of old, to thy care we commit the helpless.-Beecher.

The form its.

81. It is worth while to consider the possessive its. This is of comparatively recent growth. The old form was his (from the nominative hit), and this continued in use till the sixteenth century. The transition from the old his to the modern its is shown in these sentences:-

1 He anointed the altar and all his vessels.-Bible

Here his refers to altar, which is a neuter noun. The quotation represents the usage of the early sixteenth century.

2 It's had it head bit off by it young"smcap">-Shakespeare

Shakespeare uses his, it, and sometimes its, as possessive of it.

In Milton's poetry (seventeenth century) its occurs only three times.

3 See heaven its sparkling portals wide display-Pope

A relic of the olden time.

82. We have an interesting relic in such sentences as this from Thackeray: "One of the ways to know 'em is to watch the scared looks of the ogres' wives and children."

As shown above, the Old English objective was hem (or heom), which was often sounded with the h silent, just as we now say, "I saw 'im yesterday" when the word him is not emphatic. In spoken English, this form 'em has survived side by side with the literary them.

Use of the pronouns in personification.

Lesson 72 - 76: Pronouns and Personal Pronouns

PRONOUNS.

The need of pronouns.

72. When we wish to speak of a name several times in succession, it is clumsy and tiresome to repeat the noun. For instance, instead of saying, "The pupil will succeed in the pupil's efforts if the pupil is ambitious," we improve the sentence by shortening it thus, "The pupil will succeed in his efforts if he is ambitious."

Again, if we wish to know about the ownership of a house, we evidently cannot state the owner's name, but by a question we say, "Whose house is that?" thus placing a word instead of the name till we learn the name.

This is not to be understood as implying that pronouns were invented because nouns were tiresome, since history shows that pronouns are as old as nouns and verbs. The use of pronouns must have sprung up naturally, from a necessity for short, definite, and representative words.

Definition.

A pronoun is a reference word, standing for a name, or for a person or thing, or for a group of persons or things.

Classes of pronouns.

73. Pronouns may be grouped in five classes:-

(1) Personal pronouns, which distinguish person by their form (Sec. 76).

(2) Interrogative pronouns, which are used to ask questions about persons or things.

(3) Relative pronouns, which relate or refer to a noun, pronoun, or other word or expression, and at the same time connect two statements They are also called conjunctive.

(4) Adjective pronouns, words, primarily adjectives, which are classed as adjectives when they modify nouns, but as pronouns when they stand for nouns.

(5) Indefinite pronouns, which cannot be used as adjectives, but stand for an indefinite number of persons or things.

Numerous examples of all these will be given under the separate classes hereafter treated.

PERSONAL PRONOUNS..

Person in grammar.

74. Since pronouns stand for persons as well as names, they must represent the person talking, the person or thing spoken to, and the person or thing talked about.

This gives rise to a new term, "the distinction of person."

Person of nouns.

75. This distinction was not needed in discussing nouns, as nouns have the same form, whether representing persons and things spoken to or spoken of. It is evident that a noun could not represent the person speaking, even if it had a special form.

From analogy to pronouns, which have forms for person, nouns are sometimes spoken of as first or second person by their use; that is, if they are in apposition with a pronoun of the first or second person, they are said to have person by agreement.

But usually nouns represent something spoken of.

Three persons of pronouns.

76. Pronouns naturally are of three persons:-

(1) First person, representing the person speaking.

(2) Second person, representing a person or thing spoken to.

(3) Third person, standing for a person or thing spoken of.

Lesson 69 - 71: Parsing and Nouns

HOW TO PARSE NOUNS.

69. Parsing a word is putting together all the facts about its form and its relations to other words in the sentence.

In parsing, some idioms-the double possessive, for example-do not come under regular grammatical rules, and are to be spoken of merely as idioms.

70. Hence, in parsing a noun, we state,-

(1) The class to which it belongs,-common, proper, etc.

(2) Whether a neuter or a gender noun; if the latter, which gender.

(3) Whether singular or plural number.

(4) Its office in the sentence, determining its case.

The correct method.

71. In parsing any word, the following method should always be followed: tell the facts about what the word does, then make the grammatical statements as to its class, inflections, and relations.

MODEL FOR PARSING.

"What is bolder than a miller's neckcloth, which takes a thief by the throat every morning?"

Miller's is a name applied to every individual of its class, hence it is a common noun; it is the name of a male being, hence it is a gender noun, masculine; it denotes only one person, therefore singular number; it expresses possession or ownership, and limits neckcloth, therefore possessive case.

Neckcloth, like miller's, is a common class noun; it has no sex, therefore neuter; names one thing, therefore singular number; subject of the verb is understood, and therefore nominative case.

Thief is a common class noun; the connection shows a male is meant, therefore masculine gender; singular number; object of the verb takes, hence objective case.

Throat is neuter, of the same class and number as the word neckcloth; it is the object of the preposition by, hence it is objective case.

NOTE.-The preposition sometimes takes the possessive case (see Sec. 68).

Morning is like throat and neckcloth as to class, gender, and number; as to case, it expresses time, has no governing word, but is the adverbial objective.

Exercise.

Follow the model above in parsing all the nouns in the following sentences:-

1. To raise a monument to departed worth is to perpetuate virtue.

2. The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident.

3. An old cloak makes a new jerkin; a withered serving man, a fresh tapster.

4.

That in the captain's but a choleric word,

Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

5. Now, blessings light on him that first invented ... sleep!

6. Necker, financial minister to Louis XVI., and his daughter, Madame de Stael, were natives of Geneva.

7. He giveth his beloved sleep.

8. Time makes the worst enemies friends.

9. A few miles from this point, where the Rhone enters the lake, stands the famous Castle of Chillon, connected with the shore by a drawbridge,-palace, castle, and prison, all in one.

10.

Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth,

And hated her for her pride.

11. Mrs. Jarley's back being towards him, the military gentleman shook his forefinger.