A history of the English Language

44.
The Definite Article.
Like German, its sister language of today, Old English possessed a fully inflected definite 
article. How complete the declension of this word was can be seen from the following 
forms:
SINGULAR PLURAL 
Masc.
Fem.
Neut.
All Genders
N. s
ē
s
ē
o ðæt 
ð
ā
G. ðæs 
ðæs ð
ā
ra 
D. 
A. ðone 
ð
ā
ðæ 
ð
ā
I. 
A history of the english language 52

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While the ordinary meaning of 
s
ē
, s
ē
o, ðœt
is ‘the’, the word is really a demonstrative 
pronoun and survives in the Modern English demonstrative 
that
. Its pronominal character 
appears also in its not infrequent use as a relative pronoun (=who, which, that) and as a 
personal pronoun (=he, she, it). The regular personal pronoun, however, is shown in the 
next paragraph. 
45.
The Personal Pronoun.
From the frequency of its use and the necessity for specific reference when used, the 
personal pronoun in all languages is likely to preserve a fairly complete system of 
inflections. Old English shows this tendency not only in having distinctive forms for 
practically all genders, persons, and cases but also in preserving in addition to the 
ordinary two numbers, singular and plural, a set of forms for two people or two things—
the dual number. Indo-European had separate forms for the dual number in the verb as 
well, and these appear in Greek and to a certain extent in Gothic. They are not found, 
however, in Old English, and the distinction between the dual and the plural was 
disappearing even from the pronoun in Old English. The dual forms are shown, however, 
in the following table of the Old English personal pronoun:
N. ic 
ð
ū
h
ē
(he)
h
ē
o 
(she)
hit 
(it)
G. m
ī
n ð
ī
n his hiere his 
D. m
ē
ð
ē
him hiere him 
Singular
A. m
ē
(mec) 
ð
ē
(ðec) 
hine 
h
ī
e hit 
N. wit 
(we two)
git 
(ye two)
G. uncer 
incer 
D. unc 
inc 
Dual
A. unc 
inc 
N. w
ē
g
ē
h
ī
e
G. 
ū
ser (
ū
re) 
ē
ower 
hiera 
D. 
ū
s 
ē
ow 
him 
Plural
A. 
ū
s (
ū
sic) 
ē
ow (
ē
owic)
h
ī
e