He 225073 226002302 2008-07-16T11:50:44Z CarsracBot 6929011 robot Adding: [[simple:He]] {{Otheruses4|the English personal pronoun|other uses|He (disambiguation)}} {{Wiktionary|he}} {{Wiktionary|him}} {{Wiktionary|his}} <p>'''''He''''' ({{IPAEng|hiː}}) is a [[grammatical person|third-person]], [[grammatical number|singular]] [[personal pronoun]] ([[Nominative case|subject case]]) in [[Modern English]].</p> {{Modern English personal pronouns (table)}} ==Usage== ===People=== He can be used as a substitution of a male's name. ===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=== {{Quote|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.<ref>Susanne Wagner, ''[http://www.freidok.uni-freiburg.de/volltexte/1412/pdf/Diss_Freidok.pdf Gender in English Pronouns]: Myth and Reality'', PhD thesis, [[University of Freiburg|Albert Ludwigs Universität]], 2003. Page 41.</ref>}} ===Other=== The pronoun He, with a universally capitalized H is often used to refer to God. ==Gender== {{main|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.<ref>Randolf Sidney Quirk, Geoffrey Greenbaum and Ian Svartvik, ''A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language'', (London: [[Longman]], 1985), p. 314.</ref> In the table ''RP'' stands for ''relative pronoun'' and ''PP'' for ''personal pronoun''. {{Gender classes in English}} ==Etymology== ===Indo-European=== <p>The reconstructed [[Indo-European language]] provides a [[demonstrative pronoun]] ''ko''.<ref>[http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE233.html 'Ko'], ''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'', Fourth edition, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000).</ref></p> ===Germanic=== English is a development of the [[West Germanic languages|West Germanic language family]]. ===Old English=== {{Old English personal pronouns (table)}} <p>Speakers of [[Old English]] (OE) considered each noun to have a [[grammatical gender]] — masculine, feminine or neuter.<ref>Peter S Baker, [http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/resources/IOE/index.html ''Introduction to Old English''], ([[Oxford]]: [[Blackwell]], 2003).</ref> Pronouns were generally (but not always)<ref>Greville Corbett, ''Gender'', (Cambridge: [[Cambridge University Press]], 1991).</ref> selected to have the same grammatical gender as the noun they referred to. For example, ''dæg'' ({{IPA2|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'' ({{IPA2|he:}}). The vowel in ''hay'' is normally longer in duration than in the exlamation ''Hey!'' ({{IPA2|he}}). Because the vowel sound of OE ''he'' was long in duration, scholars (and OE dictionaries) now write it as ''hē''.</p> ===Middle English=== {{Middle English personal pronouns (table)}} <p>There was one change to the inflection of the masculine pronoun in [[Middle English]]. The OE [[dative case|dative]] form ''him'' replaced the OE [[accusative case|accusative]] ''hine'' ({{IPA2|hine}}). 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."<ref>{{cite paper|title=Gender in English pronouns: Myth and reality|author=Susanne Wagner|format=PDF|url=http://www.freidok.uni-freiburg.de/volltexte/1412/pdf/Diss_Freidok.pdf|date=[[2004-07-22]]|publisher=[[Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg|Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg]]}}</ref></p> ==See also== * [[Generic antecedents]] * [[Gender-specific pronoun]] * [[English personal pronouns]] {{Modern English personal pronouns}} {{gender-neutral pronouns}} ==References== <div class="references-small"> <references/> </div> ==External links== *William Malone Baskervill and James Witt Sewel, [http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/wmbaskervill/bl-wmbaskervill-grammar-syntax-pronouns.htm ''An English Grammar''], 1896.''' *[http://www.bartleby.com/61/75/H0097500.html 'He'], ''[[The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language]]'', Fourth edition, (Boston: [[Houghton Mifflin|Houghton Mifflin Company]], 2000). [[Category:English grammar]] [[Category:Gender-neutral pronouns]] [[Category:Middle English personal pronouns]] [[Category:Modern English personal pronouns]] [[Category:Old English personal pronouns]] [[de:HE]] [[el:HE]] [[es:HE]] [[eo:He]] [[fr:HE]] [[ko:HE]] [[it:HE]] [[ja:HE]] [[ce:Иза]] [[no:HE]] [[nds:He]] [[pt:HE]] [[simple:He]] [[sr:He]] [[fi:He]] [[te:అతడు]] [[vi:He]] [[tr:He]]