He (IPA: /hiː/) is a third-person, singular personal pronoun (subject case) in Modern English. Grammatical person, in Linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event such as the speaker the Addressee, or others In linguistics grammatical number is a Grammatical category of nouns pronouns and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one" Personal pronouns are Pronouns used as substitutes for proper or common Nouns. The nominative case is a Grammatical case for a Noun, which generally marks the subject of a Verb, as opposed to its object or other Modern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift, completed in roughly 1550

Usage

People

He can be used as a substitution of a male's name. The personal pronouns of English can have various forms according to gender, number, person, and case. I (aɪ is the first-person, singular Personal pronoun ( subject case) in Modern English. We (wiː is the first-person, plural Personal pronoun ( subject case) in Modern English. YOU' ' is a South African magazine which is the English version of the Afrikaans family magazine Huisgenoot. YOU' ' is a South African magazine which is the English version of the Afrikaans family magazine Huisgenoot. They (ðeɪ is a third-person, Personal pronoun ( subject case) in Modern English. She (ʃiː is a third-person, singular Personal pronoun ( subject case) in Modern English. It (ɪt is a third-person, singular Neuter pronoun ( subject case) in Modern English.

Animals

Grammatically, it is most often incorrect to use the pronouns "he" or "she" when referring to animals, with the neuter "it" being more correct. However, they are both often used colloquially to refer to animals of the appropriate gender.

Generic

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. ^[1]

Other

The pronoun He, with a universally capitalized H is often used to refer to God.

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. Gender in the English language has been the focus of two distinct debates ^[2] In the table RP stands for relative pronoun and PP for personal pronoun.

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

Etymology

Indo-European

The reconstructed Indo-European language provides a demonstrative pronoun ko. Demonstratives are deictic words (they depend on an external frame of reference that indicate which entities a speaker refers to and distinguishes those entities from others ^[3]

Germanic

English is a development of the West Germanic language family. The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three traditional branches of the Germanic family of Languages and include languages such as English

Old English

Speakers of Old English (OE) considered each noun to have a grammatical gender — masculine, feminine or neuter. We (wiː is the first-person, plural Personal pronoun ( subject case) in Modern English. In Linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called Noun classes are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words every noun must belong ^[4] Pronouns were generally (but not always)^[5] selected to have the same grammatical gender as the noun they referred to. For example, dæg (IPA: [dæj], day) was masculine, so a masculine pronoun was used when referring to a day or days. The personal pronoun for a singular masculine subject was written he, just like Present-Day English (PrDE). However, OE he was probably pronounced like PrDE hay (IPA: [he:]). The vowel in hay is normally longer in duration than in the exlamation Hey! (IPA: [he]). Because the vowel sound of OE he was long in duration, scholars (and OE dictionaries) now write it as hē.

Middle English

There was one change to the inflection of the masculine pronoun in Middle English. Below is a list of Middle English Personal pronouns. I (aɪ is the first-person, singular Personal pronoun ( subject case) in Modern English. We (wiː is the first-person, plural Personal pronoun ( subject case) in Modern English. The word thou ( in most dialects is a second person singular Pronoun in English. Ye ( IPA: /jiː/ or traditionally /ðiː/ was the second-person, plural, Personal pronoun ( Nominative) in Old English They (ðeɪ is a third-person, Personal pronoun ( subject case) in Modern English. Sche (ʃiː was the feminine, third-person, singular, Personal pronoun ( subject case) in Middle English. Middle English is the name given by Historical linguistics to the diverse forms of the English language spoken between the Norman invasion of The OE dative form him replaced the OE accusative hine (IPA: [hine]). The dative case is a Grammatical case generally used to indicate the Noun to whom something is given The accusative case ( abbreviated ACC) of a Noun is the Grammatical case used to mark the Direct object of a Transitive 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. So, "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. "^[6]

See also

• Generic antecedents
• Gender-specific pronoun
• English personal pronouns

References

External links

• William Malone Baskervill and James Witt Sewel, An English Grammar, 1896.
• 'He', The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth edition, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000). The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language ( AHD) is an American Dictionary of the English language published by Houghton Mifflin Company is a leading educational Publisher in the United States.