Summary Archaic / Early Modern English terms and definitions

Archaic pronouns
Current subjective and objective pronouns look like this:

Subjective Objective

I Me

You You Subjective pronouns do the actions of a sentence
whereas objective receives the action. E.g.
He Him
I saw Him
She Her

It It He saw Me

We Us

They Them


Early modern English had more second-person pronouns then English today. As well as saying
'you', you could also say "thou", "thee" and "ye".

'Thou' is a subjective pronoun, meaning that it does the actions in a sentence, for example,
"Thou saw me".

'Thee' is an objective pronoun meaning it receives the action, for example "I saw thee".

Ye is the plural of thou and thee, meaning if you wanted to say "I saw you", with 'you' being a
group of people, you would say "I saw ye".

The second person pronoun 'you' was also used. 'You' was considered more formal, and was
used for people of a higher or equal status to oneself, for example a lord or lady. Thou, thee and
ye were used for people of a lower class, for example a servant, or to people who were close
friends.

Thy = Your - Archaic second person possessive determiner
E.g. Honour thy mother and thy father

Thine = Your (before a vowel) - Archaic second person possessive determiner
E.g. Thine eyes I love

Thine = Yours - Archaic second person possessive pronoun
E.g. This is thine (this is yours)

Thyself = Yourself - Archaic second person reflexive pronoun
E.g. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.