Dual pronouns in Genesis A and B

Abstract

In Old English dual personal pronouns constituted a small but significant pocket of its inflectional morphology. Their disappearance in Middle English is usually taken as evidence for their marginal and tenuous status already in the preceding centuries. They are seen as optional, poetic, and unpredictable. It is the argument of this paper on the basis of the evidence of the Old English Genesis that these claims warrant a careful revision as – at least in this one poem – there is nothing random or irregular about their use.