Disinherited protagonists in the early history of T/V variation in Middle English

Abstract

Middle English is the essential stage in the development of English second-person pronouns. This is the time when honorific forms ye / you / your emerge, as commonly believed under French influence, gradually become default, and eventually oust the inherited singular forms thou / thee / thi(ne) to marked contexts and regionally restricted varieties. This paper addresses the initial stages of these developments dealing with the earliest attestations of honorific ye in two Middle English romances that make up the so-called ‘Matter of England’. More specifically, its focus is on Havelok the Dane (c.1300) and The Tale of Gamelyn (c.1350), which both have disinheritance as the central conflict and thus narrate stories of protagonists who are socially ambiguous. This essay investigates how this ambiguity is reflected at the level of second-person pronouns when they address, and are addressed by, other characters. Special attention is given to the notion of ‘interactional status’ theorised by Jucker (2006, 2020) and, in particular, to how it can enlighten several cases of switches between thou and ye pronouns in the chosen romances.