Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English Language
and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,3, University of
Potsdam (Institut fur Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course:
Introduction to Middle English, 24 entries in the bibliography,
language: English, abstract: The "Modularbeit" is concerned with
questions of language contact between Old Norse and Old English in
the region later "Danelaw," which might have influenced the
modification of Old English third person plural pronomina with base
"h" into a new form with the base "th," as we still know it today:
"they, them, their." Walking through the streets of York several
years ago, I was welcomed by a fierce-looking crowd of Vikings
running towards me. In my case, though, the horde was just a group
of actors commemorating regional history. At the end of the 8th
century, Scandinavian Viking armies conquered different territories
in Europe. England was attacked by Danish Vikings starting in the
780s . After several years of mere raiding, 851 marked their first
stay during winter. The Danish conquests developed into a permanent
settlement in some parts of England and finally led to a treaty
signed in 886 between a Danish leader and the king of Wessex, then
central power of England. The treaty acknowledged the Danish rule
over Northeast England, the territory later being called Danelaw .
The Danish influence ceased until 954, but linguistic evidence of
this contact with the Danes remains incorporated even in Modern
English . One remarkable feature of this evidence is the English
system of the third-person plural personal pronouns they, them, and
their, whose development shall be examined more closely in this
paper. In Modern English, 'they' plays an important role. On one
hand, it can be used as a generic synonym for 'people', often
leading to an imprecise definition of who "they" actually are. On
the other hand, it has served as a common-gender substitution for
the masculine third-person singular pro
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