Evolution of English Pronouns

"Who" and "whom", "he" and "him", "she" and "her", etc. are remnants of both the old nominative versus accusative and also of nominative versus dative. In other words, "her" (for example) serves as both the dative and accusative version of the nominative pronoun "she". In Old English as well as modern German and Icelandic as further examples, these cases had distinct pronouns. This collapse of the separate case pronouns into the same word is one of the reasons grammarians consider the dative and accusative cases to be extinct in English neither is an ideal term for the role played by "whom". Instead, the term objective is often used; that is, "whom" is a generic objective pronoun which can describe either a direct or an indirect object. The nominative case, "who", is called simply the subjective. The information formerly conveyed by having distinct case forms is now mostly provided by prepositions and word order. Modern English morphologically distinguishes only one case, the possessive case which some linguists argue is not a case at all, but a clitic (see the entry for genitive case for more information). With only a few pronominal exceptions, the objective and subjective always have the same form.

Interrogative Pronouns
Case Masculine/ Femenine (Person) Nominative Accusative Dative Instrumental Genitive Neuter (Thing) Nominative Accusative Dative Instrumental Genitive hws hwt hwt hwm / hwm hw / hwon hws what/whom why whos why whose whos what what whose Old English hw hwone / hwne hwm / hwm whom who/whom Middle English who Modern English who

First Person Personal Pronouns

Case Nominative Singular Accusative Dative Genitive Nominative Plural Accusative Dative Genitive

Old English ic m / me m mn w s / si s ser / re

Middle English I / ich / ik me min / mi we us ure / our

Modern English I me my, mine we us our, ours

Second Person Personal Pronouns

Case Nominative Singular Accusative Dative Genitive Nominative Plural Accusative Dative Genitive

Old English / e n ow / owi ow ower

Middle English u / thou

Modern English Thou (you) / thee thy, thine (your) you

/ thee i / n / ne / thy /thin / thine ye / e / you you, ya your

Your, yours

Third Person Personal Pronouns

Case Masculine singular Nominative Accusative Dative Genitive Femenine singular Nominative Accusative Dative Genitive

Old English h hine him his ho he hire hire

Middle English he him his

Modern Englsih he him his

heo / sche / ho she / he / ho hire / hure / her / heore hir / hire / heore / her / here her her, hers

Third Person Personal Pronouns

Case Neuter singular Nominative Accusative Dative Genitive Plural Nominative Accusative Dative Genitive

Old English hit hit him his he he him hira

Middle English hit / it hit / it / him his / its he / hi / ho / hie / ai / ei hem / ham / heom / aim / em / am here / heore / hore / air / ar

Modern English it its they

them their, theirs

Historic English Text Samples

Old English Beowulf AD 900

Middle English The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, 14th century

Historic English Text Samples

Modern English Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, 1838