He

This article is about the English personal pronoun. For other uses, see He (disambiguation).

He is a masculine third-person, singular personal pronoun (subjective case) in Modern English, as well as being a personal pronoun in Middle English.

Personal pronouns in standard Modern English
Person (gender) Subject Object Dependent Possessive Independent Possessive Reflexive
Singular
First I me my mine myself
Second you your yours yourself
Third Masculine he him his himself
Feminine she her hers herself
Neuter it its itself
Epicene they them their theirs themselves
Plural
First we us our ours ourselves
Second you your yours yourselves
Third they them their theirs themselves

Usage

People

"He" can be used as a substitution of a male's name.

Animals

"He" and "she" are often used to refer to domesticated animals and sometimes non-domesticated animals of the respective sex.

Gender neutral

A study has shown that "there was a rather extended period of time in the history of the English language when the choice of a supposedly masculine personal pronoun (him) said nothing about the gender or sex of the referent."[1]

The use of "he" to refer to a person of unknown gender was often prescribed by manuals of style and school textbooks from the early 18th century until around the 1960s, an early example of which is Ann Fisher's 1745 grammar book "A New Grammar".[2]

This may be compared to usage of the word man to humans in general.

Gender-specific pronouns were also prescribed when one might presume that most members of some group are the same gender (although in recent times, such presumptions are sometimes seen as offensive).

Other

The pronoun He, with a universally capitalized H, is often used to refer to the Supreme Being, or in Christian contexts, to Jesus Christ; "It", with a capitalized I, is also used when speaking of the Supreme Being's nature or Godhead, or in Christian contexts, to refer to the Logos; capitalized "He" and "It" have both been used to refer to the Holy Spirit. In Catholic Christian circles, the Blessed Sacrament is also referred to with the capitalized pronoun "It".

Gender

Main article: Gender in English

The gender system in Modern English is generally natural, semantic and logical; however it is most similar to languages whose gender systems primarily distinguish between the animate and inanimate, and between the personal and impersonal.[3] In the table RP stands for relative pronoun and PP for personal pronoun.

Gender classes in Modern English
Gender ClassExampleRPPP
animatepersonal1. malebrotherwhohe
2. femalesisterwhoshe
3. dualdoctorwhohe/she, he, they
generic4. commonbabywho
which
he/she/it
it
5. collectivefamilywhich
who
it
they
impersonal6. higher male animalbullwhich
(who)
he/it
he
7. higher female animalcowwhich
(who)
she/it
she
8. lower animalantwhichit (he/she)
inanimate9. inanimatecarbon rodwhichit

Notes: RP is relative pronoun and PP personal pronoun. Alternatives are presented in three ways:
slash (/) — used equally; above & below — first preferred; parentheses "()" — disputed or unusual usage.

Etymology

Indo-European

The reconstructed Indo-European language provides a demonstrative pronoun ko.[4]

Germanic

English is a development of the West Germanic language family.

Old English

Old English pronouns
Nominative IPA Accusative Dative Genitive
1st Singular [ɪtʃ] mec / mē mīn
Dual wit [wɪt] uncit unc uncer
Plural [weː] ūsic ūs ūser / ūre
2nd Singular þū [θuː] þec / þē þē þīn
Dual ġit [jɪt] incit inc incer
Plural ġē [jeː] ēowic ēow ēower
3rd Singular Masculine [heː] hine him his
Neuter hit [hɪt] hit him his
Feminine hēo [heːo] hīe hiere hiere
Plural hīe [hiːə] hīe heom heora

Speakers of Old English (OE) considered each noun to have a grammatical gender — masculine, feminine or neuter.[5] Pronouns were generally (but not always)[6] selected to have the same grammatical gender as the noun they referred to. For example, dæg ([dæj] 'day') was masculine, so a masculine pronoun was used when referring to a day or days. The pronoun "he" was written he, as in Present-Day English (PrDE), but pronounced ([heː]), rather like PrDE hay.

Middle English

Personal pronouns in Middle English
The Modern English is shown in italics below each Middle English pronoun
Person (gender) Subject Object Possessive determiner Possessive pronoun Reflexive
Singular
First
modern
ic / ich / I
I
me / mi
me
min / minen [pl.]
my
min / mire / minre
mine
min one / mi selven
myself
Second
modern (archaic)
þou / þu / tu / þeou
you (thou)
þe
you (thee)
þi / ti
your (thy)
þin / þyn
yours (thine)
þeself / þi selven
yourself (thyself)
Third Masculine
modern
he
he
him[lower-alpha 1] / hine[lower-alpha 2]
him
his / hisse / hes
his
his / hisse
his
him-seluen
himself
Feminine
modern
sche[o] / s[c]ho / ȝho
she
heo / his / hie / hies / hire
her
hio / heo / hire / heore
her
-
hers
heo-seolf
herself
Neuter
modern
hit
it
hit / him
it
his
its
his
its
hit sulue
itself
Plural
First
modern
we
we
us / ous
us
ure[n] / our[e] / ures / urne
our
oures
ours
us self / ous silve
ourselves
Second
modern (archaic)
ȝe / ye
you (ye)
eow / [ȝ]ou / ȝow / gu / you
you
eower / [ȝ]ower / gur / [e]our
your
youres
yours
Ȝou self / ou selve
yourselves
Third From Old English heo / he his / heo[m] heore / her - -
From Old Norse þa / þei / þeo / þo þem / þo þeir - þam-selue
modern they them their theirs themselves

Many other variations are noted in Middle English sources due to difference in spellings and pronunciations. See Francis Henry Stratmann (1891). A Middle-English dictionary. [London]: Oxford University Press.  and A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 TO 1580, A. L. Mayhew, Walter W. Skeat, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1888.

There was one change to the inflection of the masculine pronoun in Middle English. The OE dative form him replaced the OE accusative hine [hinə]. This meant that, in Middle English, there was no distinction between masculine and impersonal, except in the subject case of the third-person singular, until it from hit replaced him in the object case of the impersonal. Some scholars believe that "there was rather an extended period of time in the history of the English language when the choice of a supposedly masculine personal pronoun (him) said nothing about the gender or sex of the referent."[7]

See also

References

  1. Susanne Wagner, Gender in English Pronouns: Myth and Reality, PhD thesis, Albert Ludwigs Universität, 2003. Page 41.
  2. Patricia T. O'Conner; Stewart Kellerman (21 July 2009). "All-Purpose Pronoun". The New York Times.
  3. Randolf Sidney Quirk, Geoffrey Greenbaum and Ian Svartvik, A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, (London: Longman, 1985), p. 314.
  4. 'Ko', The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth edition, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000).
  5. Peter S Baker, Introduction to Old English, (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003).
  6. Greville Corbett, Gender, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
  7. Susanne Wagner (22 July 2004). "Gender in English pronouns: Myth and reality" (PDF). Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg.

Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartvik. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, Longman, 1985.

External links

Look up he in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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