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.

中文翻译：

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中古英语 T/V 变体早期历史中被剥夺继承权的主角


中古英语是英语第二人称代词发展的重要阶段。这是敬语形式 ye / you / ur 出现的时候，正如人们普遍认为的那样，在法国的影响下，逐渐成为默认形式，并最终将继承的单数形式 thou / thee / thi（ne） 驱逐到标记的上下文和受地区限制的变体中。本文讨论了这些发展的初始阶段，涉及构成所谓“英格兰问题”的两首中古英语浪漫词中最早的敬语 ye 证明。更具体地说，它的重点是丹麦人哈维洛克（约1300年）和加梅林的故事（约1350年），它们都以剥夺继承权为中心冲突，因此讲述了社会模棱两可的主人公的故事。本文研究了当第二人称代词称呼其他角色时，这种歧义是如何反映在第二人称代词的层面上的。特别关注 Jucker （2006， 2020） 提出的“互动状态”概念，特别是它如何启发所选浪漫故事中 hou 和 ye 代词之间切换的几种情况。