II. ON THE ENGLISH DATIVE-NOMINATIVE OF

THE PERSONAL PRONOUN.

The syntax of the personal pronoun in the second person has been treated by many writers; but, so far as I know, the history of the singular dative-nominative has never been made the subject of special investigation. The grammars, at any rate, have little or nothing to say on the subject. Koch actually confounds dative and accusative; cf. Zupitza's correction in the new edition (Cassel, 1878) of the second volume of the grammar, §324. Mätzner is interesting with regard to the impersonal verbs with datives (cf. below), but does not treat our subject directly. I have not Zupitza's note to a passage in Guy of Warwick, a note referred to in the grammar, treating of the dat.-nom. you. But with regard to the still earlier dat.-nom. for the singular of the second pers., there is nothing, that I am acquainted with, which bears directly on the subject. What here follows is mere sketch. The pressure of other work forbids any attempt on the writer's part to make a thorough study of the whole matter. Lack of material has prevented any consideration of the dialects.

First, we must connect the later change (ye to you, i. e. the formation of a plural dat.-nom.) with the earlier like tendency in the singular, notably the Kentish sing. dat.-nom. pe for pu. They result from the same cause. After the dative had driven out the acc. forms of the pers. pron. (cf. Koch, Satzlehre, §313, §314, §324), it turned toward the nominative. The dative, in fact, had long performed nominative functions. There is the well-known construction with self, as in Koch's example, Leorna pe seolfa, or in Andreas, 1348, 3á þe sylfa tó. Besides the pers. pronouns, the definite article itself undoubtedly takes its rise from the dative form: cf. mid pe king, of pe temple, on pe circe; and note to Old Eng. Homilies (Morris), p. xxxviii. In the Chronicle (ed. Earle, p. 260) we have the new nom. pe king, and the old nom. se king, within five lines of each other. The dat. in impersonal constructions, and the so-called ethical dative, we shall glance at below.

We turn to the regular dat.-nom. pe and you. As to the second, Zupitza shows (in his edition of Koch) that the dat.-nom. you

occurs as early as Guy of Warwick, that is, in the 15th century: To morowe schall yow wedded bee. But even if it does occur so early, it is sporadic; and for the most part of England, the new form gains ground at first very slowly. Take for example the Paston Letters. From the nature of the case, the second pers. is used in overwhelming amount; yet a search for the dat.-nom., so common a few decades later, is but scantily rewarded. Take the reign of Henry VI, and that of Henry VII: i. e. the two periods respectively from 1422 to 1461, and from 1485 to 1509. The first of these periods, as represented in the Paston Letters, shows as much use of the dat.-nom. you (that is, almost no use) as the second period. There is no gain whatever. In 1449, Margaret Paston writes her husband: "I pray yow if ye have another sone that you woll lete it be named Herry." William Tailboys, about 1450, describes how one Lord Welles said to a prisoner before all the people: "Fals thefe, you shall be hanged." A little later, John Osbern writing to John Paston (No. 159) says: “you have offered hym." But fifty years later, under Henry VII, the ye is just as tenacious of its position as in the earliest letters. More than this, several expressions which in earlier stages of the language used the dative exclusively, are now nominative constructions: cf. yf ye lyste (Vol. III, p. 377, in letter 929) with Chaucer's him luste ryde soo (C. T. 102); if ye lyke (Vol. III, p. 370); whane ye like, I 387, etc., with (Piers Pl. 9223)." If thee well hadde liked." It is even used outright for the acc., thus: "Sir, ther arn XV jurores abowe to certifie ye," I 55; and, "I pray ye that," etc., I 70. Just below in the same letter we have the acc. "I pray 3w." The earliest authority for this confusion, cited by Koch, is Shakspere. But we find it as early as Chaucer. Cf. Troylus and Cryseide, Proem:

So the Campsall MS. The Harleian 2280 has the same, fro ye. Morris, in the Aldine edition, fails to see this, and spoils the rime by reading fro pe.

If one should read the Paston Letters from beginning to end, and should then base on them alone the prospects of our now universal plural dat.-nom., one would find little encouragement. In nearly a century (1424 to 1509) there is not the slightest indication of such a change. The most striking example of our dat.nom. occurs in a letter written about 1450; the later letters write

regularly ye for nom. But if we turn to the Kentish Azenbite of Inwyt, written (1340) a century before these letters, we find a use of the dat.-nom. in the second person of the singular pers. pron., that would justify the prophecy of a speedy substitution of pe for pu. It requires no very elaborate reasoning to prove that the singular was about to travel the same path that the plural trod later, was about to establish a dat.-nom. thee, as it afterwards established you. But just here began the change from singular to plural form. "Im Ne. (new English) gilt ye schon im 15 und 16 Jahrh. als das höflichere," says Koch (p. 231). The singular was isolated. A hedge was set about it. It was reserved for solemn purposes, and was thus removed from the influence of linguistic change. It became one of those forms that men use consciously, with effort; just as we use ye with effort. Most men use any case of the singular pers. pron. second pers. only on especial occasions, and with this conscious effort.

Most men, but not all. Koch is mistaken when he says ($299) that thou is retained in "dem allgemeinen Gebrauch der Quäker." In point of fact, few members of the Society of Friends use thou in familiar speech. They use the singular in familiar speech, but, obedient to the tendency, it is the dat.-nom. thee, not thou. Just as you does service for all plural cases, so thee for the singular. This is well known to be the common household practice of Quakers. A few isolated exceptions only prove the rule. I have seen a familiar letter of an educated Friend, written in the early part of the 18th century, where the thee is used as nom., though any solemn passage calls out a formal thou. We shall see below what Dr. Abbott brings forward as reason for this Quaker practice. Then we have the dialects-a field whence I am shut out through lack of material. But any reader of George Eliot's Adam Bede, of Tom Brown at Rugby (early chapters), or of any such books, will recall a host of instances of this sing. dat.-nom. In the Eng. Gram. of Fiedler and Sachs (Leipz. 1877, p. 311) are noted such forms as The bist (Shropshire), Thee wart (Somerset and Wiltshire), as compared with the northern Thou is.

Now let us glance at Dr. Abbott's explanation of certain forms. with thee used in Shakspere. In his well-known Shakespearian Grammar, §212, he refers such expressions as "look thee," "hark thee," to the principle of euphony. "Thee, thus used," he says, "follows imperatives, which, being themselves emphatic, require an unemphatic pronoun. The Elizabethans reduced thou to thee.

We have gone farther and rejected it altogether." Again (§205) he says: "For reasons of euphony also the ponderous thou is often ungrammatically replaced by thee, or inconsistently by you To this day many of the Friends use thee invariably for thou..." This is plainly wrong. Why should "euphony" substitute thee for thou (we must remember that -ou in thou at the time of change was not a diphthong), any more than in the plural ye should be substituted for you? Euphony may have a share in the enclitic pronoun after an imperative; but what shall we do with the overwhelming number of thee's that do not admit of such explanation? It is not necessary to go back to O. E. for cases that cannot be so explained. Thus a line that Abbott does not notice in his grammar, Henry IV, Act 1, Sc. 2, "Jack, how agrees the devil and thee about thy soul?" Abbott allows thee after the verb is, but gives no reason. E. g. "I am not thee," Timon of A., IV 3, 277. Cf. further, "If this should be thee, Malvolio," Twelfth Night, II 5; " 'Tis better thee without than he within,” Macbeth, III 4; further (leaving Shakspere):

"For two, I must confess, are gods to me,

Which is my Abradatus first, and thee."

Cyrus the Great, quoted in Fielding's Tom Thumb.

An excellent example, where any assumption of euphony is out of the question, is in Wycherley's Country Wife, III 2: "Thee and I cannot have Horner's privilege."

All such attempts as Abbott's to explain by some rule of euphony or the like, that is, all explanations that do not allow the nominative force of datives like those above, must be regarded as failures. Prof. Schele de Vere in his Studies in English, p. 242, remarks, "There is less to be said in defense of their (i. e. the Quakers) using the indirect thee under almost all circumstances for thou.” This recognizes the fact squarely, though the indefinite reason be gives later is really no reason. But when we come to the Aunbite we reach firmer ground. A study of its pronominal forms for the second person sing, shows beyond doubt the beginning of a movement whose goal was the substitution of dat. for nom. in the sing.. just as it happened in the plural. We have seen above why the process was not continued. Let us look for a moment at the forms in the Asebite. In Walcker's Lesebuck, I, p. 174. notes to selection from Ankite, the author says of the form pe sselt: “ Wie z. B. in Z. 139 und sonst Ufters steht he als nom. sing, des pronom, der 2 person. Daneben steht hoa." At last, da giebt es einen guten

Klang,"-no beating about the bush after Abbott's "euphony" or Morris's "ethical dative." Further, in Englische Studien, II 121 ff., Witte has an essay Ueber das neuangelsächsische pronomen. As to the form in question he notes: "Dialektisch kommt der dativ für den nominativ vor," and he then mentions the Azenbite. Further, he remarks on the nominative rôle played by the dative with self in Ags., as in the Genesis:

pu meaht nu pe self geséon.

...

Then he turns to other matters. As regards the Azenbite of Inwyt, we ask, first of all, whether possibly emphasis or euphony may determine the use of pe for pu. I use the E. E. T. Soc.'s edition (Morris). On p. 20 we have: "Nou pench rizt wel ine pine herte hou ofte pe hest y-do pe ilke zenne pet pou hest ine pine herte." Such rules cannot apply here. Or take the sermon from the same Arundel MS, 57, also printed in Morris and Skeat's Specimens: "Huannes comste?... and huet yseze pe ine helle?" Here-Abbott would explain as euphony-Morris's note to the passage says: comste comestu, comest thou. Yseze pe, sawest thou. pe, thou thyself." But where is the remotest need for the emphasis indicated by "thou thyself"? A little further on we have: "huet pou hest yzoze." Again, in Azen. p. 20: "and haunne pe ssoldest yhere his messe... pou iangledest." Or, p. 38, we have, I suppose, a proverb in rime: "Vor yef pe vinst and nagt ne yelst pou hit stelst." Further (p. 58): "yef pe heddest yslaze his zone," whereas (p. 72): "yef pou wylt ywyte." Still more decisive (p. 100): "and pus pe beknaust his miste "; but (five lines below): "and þus pou beknaust his wysdom." Further (p. 166): “hueruore pe yelst þe zuo "; (p. 210): "he wille yeve pet pe hest niede to pi profit."... (p. 218): "Huanne pe multepliest pine benes ich nelle none yhere "; (p. 270): "Of virtues he prest pe of bestes pou sselt by ouercome. Of zuyfthede pe prest pe | of ueleyn þe worst ouercome. Of uayrhede pe prest þe: hou moche uayr is ine pe ueperen of pe pokoce | huerof art pou more worp?" In O. E. H. 223 (De Initio Creature): "for pan pe were hihersam pines (wifes) wordum mor pan mine, pu scealt," etc. Here Morris takes were "man," (instead of "wert "), leaving the clause without a verb. The piece being a "transliteration" from Aelfric, this is the only instance of dat.-nom. to be found in it. The dat.-nom. is frequently found before an auxiliary verb in the Azenbite. Thus (p. 20): "huanne pe ssoldest "; more panne