The Old English Pronoun

Personal pronouns

First person
Case	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nom.	ic	wit	wē
Gen.	mīn	uncer	ūre, ūser
Dat.	mē	unc	ūs
Acc.	mec, mē	uncit	ūsic, ūs

Second person
Case	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nom.	Þū	git	gē
Gen.	Þīn	incer	ēower
Dat.	Þē	inc	ēow
Acc.	Þēc, Þē	incit, inc	ēowic, ēow

Third person
	Masc.	Fem.	Neuter	Plural
Nom.	hē	hēo, hīo	hit	hīe, hī, hú, hēo
Gen.	his	hire, hiere	his	hira, heora, hiera, hyra
Dat.	him	hire, hiere	him	him, heom
Acc.	hine	hīe, hī, hú	hit	hīe, hī, hú, hēo

The possessive pronouns are derived from the genitive case of the personal pronouns. The 1^stand 2d person possessive pronouns are declined like adjectives to show the agreement with the noun, the 3d person possessive pronouns (his, hire, hiera) are unchanged.

Demonstrative pronouns

There were two demonstrative pronouns in OE, that could also act as determiners (similar to the modern definite article): se, which could function as both 'the' or 'that', andþesfor 'this'.

Declension of the demonstrative pronoun Þēs

	Singular			Plural
	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
Nominative	Þes	Þēos, Þīos	Þis	Þās
Genitive	Þisses	Þisse	Þisses	Þissa
Dative	Þissum, Þeossum	Þisse	Þissum, Þeossum	Þissum, Þeossum
Accusative	Þisne, Þysne	Þās	Þis	Þās
Instrumental	Þys, Þis	—	Þys, Þis	—

Declension of the demonstrative pronoun sē

	Singular			Plural
	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
Nominative	sē	sēo	Þæt	Þā
Genitive	Þæs	Þǣre	Þæs	Þāra, Þǣra
Dative	Þǣm	Þǣre	Þǣm	Þǣm, Þām
Accusative	Þone	Þā	Þæt	Þā
Instrumental	Þ, Þon	—	Þ, Þon	—

Interrogative pronouns

The interrogative pronouns hwā? (who?) andhwæt? (what?) have only singular forms.

Nominative	hwā	hwæt
Accusative	hwæs	hwæs
Genitive	hwǣm	hw­ǣm
Dative	hwone	hwæt
Instrumental	—	hw, hwī

The interrogative pronoun hwilc? (which) is declined as a strong adjective.

Definite pronouns

gehwā (every) – declined as hwā;

gehwilc (each), ǣgÞer (either),ǣlc (each), swilc (such) – declined as strong adjectives;

sē ilca – declined as a weak adjective.

Indefinite pronouns

sum (some), ǣnig (any) – declined as strong adjectives.

Negative

nān, nǣning (no) – declined as strong adjectives.

The Old English Adjective

Adjectives in Old English are declined using the same categories as nouns: five cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and instrumental), three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter), and two numbers (singular, plural). In addition, they can be declined either strong or weak. The weak forms are used in the presence of a definite or possessive determiner, while the strong ones are used in other situations. The weak forms are identical to those for nouns, while the strong forms use a combination of noun and pronoun endings.

The strong adjective declension

blæc (black)

	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine
Singular
Nominative	blæc	blæc	blacu
Genitive	blaces	blaces	blæcre
Dative	blacum	blacum	blæcre
Accusative	blæcne	blæc	blace
Instrumental	blace	blace	—
Plural
Nominative	blace	blacu	blaca
Genitive	blacra	blacra	blacra
Dative	blacum	blacum	blacum
Accusative	blace	blacu	blaca

Notes:

• There is a slight difference in declension between short-stemmed (such as glæd, smæl) and long-stemmed (such as gōd, eald) adjectives: in the feminine nominative singular and the neuter nominative or accusative plural the short-stemmed adjectives have the ending –u, while long-stemmes adjectives have a zero ending.

• Adjectives with æ in the root syllable change it to a before all endings beginning with a vowel.

The weak adjective declension

	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine
Singular
Nominative	blaca	blace	blace
Genitive	blacan	blacan	blacan
Dative	blacan	blacan	blacan
Accusative	blacan	blace	blacan
Plural
Nominative	blacan
Genitive	blæcra (blacena)
Dative	blacum
Accusative	blacan

Degrees of comparison

Positive degree	Comparative degree	Superlative degree
earm (poor)	earmra	earmost
blæc (black)	blæcra	blacost

Several adjectives have suppletive forms of comparative and superlative

Positive degree	Comparative degree	Superlative degree
gōd (good)	betera sēlra	betst sēlest
yfel (bad)	wiersa	wierest
micel (large)	māra	mǣst
lӯtel (little)	lǣssa	lǣst

The comparatives are declined as strong adjectives; the superlatives rarely take the forms of the strong declension and mostly follow the weak declension.