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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.
Personal pronouns in Early Modern English; Nominative Oblique 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 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 ...
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 ...
The English personal pronouns are a subset of English pronouns taking various forms according to number, person, case and grammatical gender. Modern English has very little inflection of nouns or adjectives, to the point where some authors describe it as an analytic language, but the Modern English system of personal pronouns has preserved some of the inflectional complexity of Old English and ...
The grammar of Old English differs greatly from Modern English, predominantly being much more inflected.As a Germanic language, Old English has a morphological system similar to that of the Proto-Germanic reconstruction, retaining many of the inflections thought to have been common in Proto-Indo-European and also including constructions characteristic of the Germanic daughter languages such as ...
Old English pronouns; Nominative IPA Accusative Dative Genitive 1st Singular iċ: mec / mē: mē: mīn Dual wit: uncit: unc: uncer Plural wē: ūsic: ūs: ūser / ūre
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]
An archaic set of second-person pronouns used for singular reference is thou, thee, thyself, thy, thine, which are still used in religious services and can be seen in older works, such as Shakespeare's—in such texts, ye and the you set of pronouns are used for plural reference, or with singular reference as a formal V-form. [7]