ABSTRACT
The Middle English (ME) pronouns are very complicated, and show to some extent only the general tendency to simplification. In ME monosyllabic pronouns when unstressed in the sentence were treated in the same way as the unstressed syllable in the word, they showed the same weakening of the stem vowel as is seen in that of inflectional endings. The plural forms of Old English (OE) lasted on in the South and West Midlands for a time as hi, hy for the nominative; heore, here, hire, hore, hure, hare for the genitive, and heom, hem, hom, ham for dative and accusative. The treatment of the adverb in ME requires little comment. OE had no special reflexive pronoun, the personal pronouns being used in that sense. The simplification of the declension of the demonstrative pronoun was in Middle English even more drastic than that of the adjective.
