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The English language once had an extensive declension system similar to Latin, modern German or Icelandic. Old English distinguished between the nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive cases; and for strongly declined adjectives and some pronouns also a separate instrumental case (which otherwise and later completely coincided with the dative). Declension was greatly simplified during the Middle English period, when accusative and dative pronouns merged into a single objective pronoun. Nouns in Modern English no longer decline for case, except in a sense for possessive, and for remnants of the former system in a few 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.

Contents

Evolution of English declension

Interrogative pronouns

Old masculine/feminine to the modern person

Old neuter to the modern thing

First person personal pronouns

Singular

Plural

Second person personal pronouns

Old and Middle English singular to the Modern English archaic informal

Old and Middle English plural to the archaic formal to the modern general

Formal and informal forms of the second person singular and plural

Third person personal pronouns

Feminine singular

Masculine singular

Neuter singular

Plural

See also

External links

Evolution of English declension

Interrogative pronouns

Old masculine/feminine to the modern person

''Case''	'Old English'	'Middle English'	'Modern English'
Nominative	hwā	who	who
Accusative	hwone / hwæne	whom	who / whom1
Dative	hwām /
Instrumental
Genitive	hwæs	whos	whose

¹ - Most generally speaking, in non-subject rules: "whom" is used in "formal" situations and in writing, while "who" is colloquial or "informal". A dialectal investigation should be taken into consideration, of course.

Old neuter to the modern thing

''Case''	'Old English'	'Middle English'	'Modern English'
Nominative	hwæt	what	what
Accusative	hwæt	what / whom
Dative	hwām /
Instrumental	/ hwon	why	why
Genitive	hwæs	whos	whose1

¹ - Usually replaced by ''of what'', except where inappropriate.

First person personal pronouns

Singular

''Case''	'Old English'	'Middle English'	'Modern English'
Nominative	iċ	I / ich	I
Accusative	mē / meċ	me	me
Dative	mē
Genitive	mīn	min / mi	my, mine

Plural

''Case''	'Old English'	'Middle English'	'Modern English'
Nominative	wē	we	we
Accusative	ūs / ūsiċ	us	us
Dative	ūs
Genitive	ūser / ūre	ure / our	our, ours

(Old English also had a separate dual, 'wit' ("we two") etcetera; however, no later forms derive from it.)

Second person personal pronouns

n.b. þ is a letter from Old English, roughly corresponding to ''th''.

Old and Middle English singular to the Modern English archaic informal

''Case''	'Old English'	'Middle English'	'Modern English'
Nominative	þū	þu / thou	thou (you)
Accusative	þē / þeċ	þé / thee	thee (you)
Dative	þē
Genitive	þīn	þi / þīn / þīne / thy /thin / thine	thy, thine (your)

Old and Middle English plural to the archaic formal to the modern general

''Case''	'Old English'	'Middle English'	'Modern English'
Nominative	ġē	ye / / you	you
Accusative	ēow / ēowiċ	you, ya
Dative	ēow
Genitive	ēower	your	your, yours

Note that the ye/you distinction still existed, at least optionally, in Early Modern English: "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free" from the King James Bible.

Formal and informal forms of the second person singular and plural

'Old English'

'Middle English'

'Modern English'

'Singular'

'Plural'

'Singular'

'Plural'

'Singular'

'Plural'

''Case''

'Formal'

'Informal'

'Formal'

'Informal'

'Formal'

'Informal'

'Formal'

'Informal'

'Formal'

'Informal'

'Formal'

'Informal'

Nominative

þū

ġē

you

thou

you

ye

you

Accusative

þē / þeċ

ēow / ēowiċ

thee

you

Dative

þē

ēow

Genitive

þīn

ēower

your, yours

thy, thine

your, yours

your, yours

(Old English also had a separate dual, ȝit ("ye two") etcetera; however, no later forms derive from it.)

Third person personal pronouns

Feminine singular

''Case''	'Old English'	'Middle English'	'Modern English'
Nominative	hēo	heo / sche / ho / he /	she
Accusative	hīe	hire / hure / her / heore	her
Dative	hire
Genitive	hire	hir / hire / heore / her / here	her, hers

Masculine singular

''Case''	'Old English'	'Middle English'	'Modern English'
Nominative	hē	he	he
Accusative	hine	him	him
Dative	him
Genitive	his	his	his

Neuter singular

''Case''	'Old English'	'Middle English'	'Modern English'
Nominative	hit	hit / it	it
Accusative	hit	hit / it / him
Dative	him
Genitive	his	his / its	its

Plural

(For the origin of the modern forms, also cf. the demonstrative pronouns.)

''Case''	'Old English'	'Middle English'	'Modern English'
Nominative	hīe	he / hi / ho / hie / þai / þei	they
Accusative	hīe	hem / ham / heom / þaim / þem / þam	them / em
Dative	him
Genitive	hiro	here / heore / hore / þair / þar	their, theirs

See also

★ Old English morphology

External links

★ The Magic Sheet, one page color PDF summarizing Old English declension