CHAPTER V.

THE TRUE PERSONAL PRONOUNS.

s. 502. _Personal pronouns._--The use of the second person plural instead of the second singular has been noticed in p. 246. This use of one number for another is current throughout the Gothic languages. A pronoun so used is conveniently called the _pronomen reverentiae_.

s. 503. In English, however, there is a second change over and above the change of number, _viz._ that of case. We not only say _ye_ instead of _thou_, but _you_ instead of _ye_.--(See p. 245).

Mr. Guest remarks, "that at one time the two forms _ye_ and _you_ seem to have been nearly changing place in our language.

As I have made _ye_ one, Lords, one remain; So I grow stronger _you_ more honour gain.

_Henry VIII._ 4, 2.

What gain _you_ by forbidding it to teaze _ye_, It now can neither trouble you nor please _ye_.

DRYDEN."

In German and the Danish the _pronomen reverentiae_ is got at by a change, not of number, but of person--in other words, the pronoun of the _third_ person is used instead of that of the _second_; just as if, in the English, we said _will they walk_=_will you walk_, _will ye walk_, _wilt thou walk_.

s. 504. _Dativus ethicus._--In the phrase

Rob me the exchequer.--_Henry IV._

the _me_ is expletive, and is equivalent to _for me_. This expletive use of the dative is conveniently called the _dativus ethicus_. It occurs more frequently in the Latin than in the {410} English, and more frequently in the Greek than in the Latin.

s. 505. _The reflected personal pronoun._--In the English language there is no equivalent to the Latin _se_, the German _sich_, and the Scandinavian _sik_, and _sig_.

It follows from this that the word _self_ is used to a greater extent than would otherwise be the case.

_I strike me_ is awkward, but not ambiguous.

_Thou strikest thee_ is awkward, but not ambiguous.

_He strikes him_ is ambiguous; inasmuch as _him_ may mean either the _person who strikes_ or some one else. In order to be clear we add the word _self_ when the idea is reflective. _He strikes himself_ is, at once, idiomatic, and unequivocal.

So it is with the plural persons.

_We strike us_ is awkward, but not ambiguous.

_Ye strike you_ is the same.

_They strike them_ is ambiguous.

This shows the value of a reflective pronoun for the third person.

As a general rule, therefore, whenever we use a verb reflectively we use the word _self_ in combination with the personal pronoun.

Yet this was not always the case. The use of the simple personal pronoun was current in Anglo-Saxon, and that, not only for the two first persons, but for the third as well.

The exceptions to this rule are either poetical expressions, or imperative moods.

He sat _him_ down at a pillar's base.--BYRON.

Sit thee down.

s. 506. _Reflective neuters._--In the phrase _I strike me_ the verb _strike_ is transitive; in other words, the word _me_ expresses the object of an action, and the meaning is different from the meaning of the simple expression _I strike_.

In the phrase _I fear me_ (used by Lord Campbell in his Lives of the Chancellors), the verb _fear_ is intransitive or neuter; in other words, the word _me_ (unless, indeed, _fear_ mean _terrify_) {411} expresses no object of any action at all; whilst the meaning is the same as in the simple expression _I fear_.

Here the reflective pronoun appears out of place, _i. e._, after a neuter or intransitive verb.

Such a use, however, is but the fragment of an extensive system of reflective verbs thus formed, developed in different degrees in the different Gothic languages; but in all more than in the English.

s. 507. _Equivocal reflectives._--The proper place of the reflective is _after_ the verb.

The proper place of the governing pronoun is, in the indicative and subjunctive moods, _before_ the verb.

Hence in expressions like the preceding there is no doubt as to the power of the pronoun.

The imperative mood, however, sometimes presents a complication. Here the governing person may follow the verb.

_Mount ye_=either _be mounted_, or _mount yourselves_. In phrases like this, and in phrases

_Busk ye_, _busk ye_, my bonny, bonny bride, _Busk ye_, _busk ye_, my winsome marrow,

the construction is ambiguous. _Ye_ may either be a nominative case governing the verb _busk_, or an accusative case governed by it.

This is an instance of what may be called the _equivocal reflective_.

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