The Grammar of English Grammars eBook

Goold Brown
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 4,149 pages of information about The Grammar of English Grammars.

The Grammar of English Grammars eBook

Goold Brown
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 4,149 pages of information about The Grammar of English Grammars.
or Them. 
              Hers, Theirs,
Sax.  Heo, Hire or Hi; Hi or Hira or Heom or
               Hyre, Hig, Heora, Hi. 
Eng.  It, Its, It; They, Their or Them. 
                                            Theirs,
Sax.  Hit, His or Hit; Hi or Hira or Heom or
              Hys, Hig, Heora, Hi.

Here, as in the personal pronouns of other languages, the plurals and oblique cases do not all appear to be regular derivatives from the nominative singular.  Many of these pronouns, perhaps all, as well as a vast number of other words of frequent use in our language, and in that from which it chiefly comes, were very variously written by the Middle English, Old English, Semi-Saxon, and Anglo-Saxon authors.  He who traces the history of our language, will meet with them under all the following forms, (or such as these would be with Saxon characters for the Saxon forms,) and perhaps in more:—­

1.  I, J, Y, y, i, ay, ic, che, ich, Ic;—­MY, mi, min, MINE, myne, myn;—­ME, mee, me, meh, mec, mech;—­WE, wee, ve;—­OUR or OURS, oure, ure, wer, urin, uren, urne, user, usse, usser, usses, ussum;—­Us, ous, vs, uss, usic, usich, usig, usih, uz, huz.

2.  THOU, thoue, thow, thowe, thu, tou, to, tu;—­THY or THINE, thi, thyne, thyn, thin;—­THEE, the, theh, thec;—­YE, yee, yhe, ze, zee, ge, ghe;—­YOUR or YOURS, youre, zour, hure, goure, yer, yower, yowyer, yorn, yourn, youre, eower;—­You, youe, yow, gou, zou, ou, iu, iuh, eow, iow, geow, eowih, eowic, iowih.

3.  HE, hee, hie, se;—­His, hise, is, hys, ys, hyse, hus;—­HIM, hine, hiene, hion, hen, hyne, hym, im;—­THEY, thay, thei, the, tha, thai, thii, yai, hi, hie, heo, hig, hyg, hy;—­THEIR or THEIRS, ther, theyr, theyrs, thair, thare, theora, hare, here, her, hir, hire, hira, hiora, hiera, heora, hyra;—­THEM, thym, theym, thaym, thaim, thame, tham, em, hem, heom, hiom, eom, hom, him, hi, hig.

4.  SHE, shee, sche, scho, sho, shoe, scae, seo, heo, hio, hiu, hoo, hue;—­HER, (possessive,) hur, hir, hire, hyr, hyre, hyra, hera;—­HER, (objective,) hire, hyre, hur, hir, hi.  The plural forms of this feminine pronoun are like those of the masculine He; but the “Well-Wishers to Knowledge,” in their small Grammar, (erroneously, as I suppose,) make hira masculine only, and heora feminine only.  See their Principles of Grammar, p. 38.

5.  IT, yt, itt, hit, hyt, hytt.  The possessive Its is a modern derivative; His or Hys was formerly used in lieu of it.  The plural forms of this neuter pronoun, It, are like those of He and She.  According to Horne Tooke, who declares hoet to have been one of its ancient forms, “this pronoun was merely the past participle of the verb HAITAN, haetan, nominare,” to name, and literally signifies “the said;” (Diversions of Purley, Vol. ii, p. 46; W.  Allen’s Gram., p. 57;) but Dr. Alexander Murray, exhibiting it in an other form, not adapted to this opinion, makes it the neuter of a declinable adjective, or pronoun, inflected from the masculine, thus:  “He, heo hita, this”—­Hist. of Lang., Vol. i, p. 315.

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