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When thou is the grammatical subject of a finite verb in the indicative mood, the verb form typically ends in -(e)st (e.g. "thou goest", "thou do(e)st"), but in some cases just -t (e.g., "thou art"; "thou shalt"). Originally, thou was simply the singular counterpart to the plural pronoun ye, derived from an ancient Indo-European root.
singular I me my/mine [# 1] mine plural we us our ours 2nd person singular informal thou thee thy/thine [# 1] thine plural informal ye you your yours formal you 3rd person singular he/she/it him/her/it his/her/his (it) [# 2] his/hers/his [# 2] plural they them their theirs
Singular I: me: my mine (before vowel) me (esp. BrE) mine: myself Plural we: us: our: ours: ourselves ourself: Second-person Singular Standard (archaic plural and later formal) you [i] your [i] yours: yourself [i] Archaic informal thou: thee: thy thine (before vowel) thine: thyself: Plural Standard you: your: yours: yourselves Archaic ye: you ...
Although there is some dialectal retention of the original plural ye and the original singular thou, most English-speaking groups have lost the original forms. Because of the loss of the original singular-plural distinction, many English dialects belonging to this group have innovated new plural forms of the second person pronoun.
The Old English and Early Middle English second person pronouns thou and ye (with variants) were used for singular and plural reference respectively with no T–V distinction. The earliest entry in the Oxford English Dictionary for ye as a V pronoun in place of the singular thou exists in a Middle English text of 1225 composed in 1200. [16]
In many languages, the verb takes a form dependent on the person of the subject and whether it is singular or plural. In English, this happens with the verb to be as follows: I am (first-person singular) you are/thou art (second-person singular) he, she, one, it is (third-person singular) we are (first-person plural) you are/ye are (second ...
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Early Modern English had two second-person personal pronouns: thou, the informal singular pronoun, and ye, the plural (both formal and informal) pronoun and the formal singular pronoun. "Thou" and "ye" were both common in the early 16th century (they can be seen, for example, in the disputes over Tyndale's translation of the Bible in the 1520s ...