We

This article is about the English personal pronoun. For other uses, seeWe (disambiguation).

InModern English,weis aplural,first-personpronoun.

Morphology

InStandardModern English,wehas six distinct shapes for five wordforms:

• we:thenominative(subjective) form
• usand's:theaccusative(objective; also called the 'oblique'.) form
• our:the dependentgenitive(possessive) form
• ours:the independentgenitive(possessive) form
• ourselves:thereflexiveform

There is also a distinctdeterminerweas inwe humans aren't perfect,which some people consider to be just an extended use of the pronoun.

History

Further information:Old English pronouns,Proto-Germanic pronouns,andProto-Indo-European pronouns

Wehas been part of English sinceOld English,having come from Proto-Germanic *wejes,from PIE *we-.Similarly,uswas used in Old English as theaccusativeanddativeplural ofwe,from PIE *nes-.The following table shows the old English first-person plural anddualpronouns:

Old English, first-person dual and plural

	Plural	Dual
Nominative	wē	wit
Accusative	ūs	unc
Dative	ūs	unc
Genitive	ūre	uncer

By lateMiddle English,the dual form was lost, and the dative and accusative had merged.Theoursgenitive can be seen as early as the 12th century.Ourselvesreplaced original constructionwe selfe,us selfumin the 15th century,so that, by the century's end, the Middle English forms ofwehad solidified into those we use today.

Gender

Weis not generally seen as participating in the system ofgender.In Old English, it did not. Only third-person pronouns had distinct masculine, feminine, and neuter gender forms.But by the 17th century, that oldgendersystem, which also marked gender oncommon nounsandadjectives,had disappeared, leaving only pronoun marking. At the same time, a newrelativepronoun system was developing that eventually split betweenpersonalrelativewhoand impersonal relativewhich.This is seen as a new personal / non-personal (or impersonal) gender system.As a result,some scholars considerweto belong to the personal gender, along withwho.

Syntax

Functions

Wecan appear as asubject,object,determinerorpredicative complement.The reflexive form also appears as anadjunct.

• Subject:We're there;usbeing there;ourbeing there; we planned forourselvesto be there.
• Object:They sawus;She pointed them tous;We thought about ourselves.
• Predicative complement:They have becomeus;We eventually felt we had becomeourselves.
• Dependentdeterminer:We reachedourgoals;Wehumans aren't perfect;Give it tousstudents.
• Independent determiner:This isours.
• Adjunct:We did itourselves.

The contracted object form'sis only possible after the specialletoflet's do that.

Dependents

Pronouns rarely takedependents,but it is possible forweto have many of the same kind of dependents as othernoun phrases.

• Relative clausemodifier:wewho arrived late
• Determiner:Not a lot of people knowthereal us.
• Adjective phrasemodifier:Not a lot of people know therealus.
• Adverb phraseexternal modifier:not evenus

Semantics

We'sreferentsgenerally must include the speaker, along with otherpersons.A few exceptional cases, which includenosism,are presented below.Weis alwaysdefiniteandspecific.

Royalwe

Main article:Royal we

The royalwe,or majestic plural (pluralis majestatis), is sometimes used by a person of high office, such as amonarch,earl, orpope.It has singular semantics.

Editorialwe

The editorialweis a similar phenomenon, in which aneditorialcolumnistin a newspaper or a similar commentator in another medium refers to themselves aswewhen giving their opinion. Here, the writer casts themselves asspokesperson:either for the media institution who employs them or on behalf of the party or body of citizens who agree with the commentary.The reference is not explicit but is generally consistent with a first-person plural.

Author'swe

The author'swe,orpluralism modesties,is a practice referring to a genericthird personaswe(instead ofoneor the informalyou):

• By adding four and five, we obtain nine.
• We are led also to a definition of "time" in physics.—Albert Einstein

Wein this sense often refers to "the reader and the author" because the author often assumes that the reader knows and agrees with certain principles or previous theorems for the sake of brevity (or, if not, the reader is prompted to look them up).This practice is discouraged by some academic style guides because it fails to distinguish between sole authorship and co-authorship.Again, the reference is not explicit, but is generally consistent with first-person plural.

Inclusive and exclusivewe

Main article:Clusivity

Some languages distinguish between inclusivewe,which includes both the speaker and the addressee(s), and exclusivewe,which excludes the addressee(s). English does not make this distinction grammatically, thoughwecan have both inclusive and exclusive semantics.

Imperativelet'sorlet usallowsimperativesto be inclusive.Compare:

• Take this outside.(exclusive, 2nd person)
• Let's take this outside.(inclusive, 1st person)

Second-personwe

Weis used sometimes in place ofyouto address a second party: A doctor may ask a patient: "And how are we feeling today?". A waiter may ask a client: "What are we in the mood for?"

Membershipwe

The membershipweis a simultaneous reference to the individual, and to the collective of which the individual is a member. If ants or hive bees could use English, they might use the pronounwealmost exclusively. Human cultures can be categorized as communal or individualist;the membershipwealigns more with a communal culture. The speaker, or thinker, expresses ideas with awareness of both themselves and the collective of other members. If language constrains or liberates thinking, then using the membershipwemay impact our ability to understand, empathize, and bond with others. The extent of inclusion when using the membershipweis loosely definite; the group may be others of the same village, nation, species, or planet. The following two examples show how meaning changes subtly depending on whetherIorweis used. When using the membershipwe,the reader or speaker is automatically drawn into the collective, and the change in viewpoint is significant:

• If I consume too much, I will run out of resources.If we consume too much, we will run out of resources.
• The more I learn, the more I should question.The more we learn, the more we should question.