hit

Forms

hit n (accusative hit, genitive his, dative him)^[1] In the Beowulf manuscript the second scribe also writes hyt.^[2] It is the neuter of the anaphoric pronoun hē, hēo, hit; the nominative and accusative are both hit.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *hit (“this, this one”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱe- (“this, here”).^[1] Its cognates are Old Frisian hit, Old High German iz and Gothic 𐌷𐌹𐍄𐌰 (hita).^[1][4]

Kroonen sets up a marginally attested pronoun Proto-Germanic *hiz (“this”) from *ki-, whose neuter survives in the Gothic form beside a dative and an accusative of the same stem.^[5] Hogg and Fulk explain the Old English pronoun from the same PIE stem, as in Latin cis (“on this side of”), while the usual Gothic pronoun, like is, goes back to an *i- stem;^[6] Gothic keeps the *ḱi- stem only in a few fixed phrases meaning “today”, “to this day” and “until now”.^[6] In its initial consonant the Old English pronoun is closest to the Old Norse one.^[6]

Holthausen sees the word instead as a new formation replacing an older *it after the model of hē, and compares Old Saxon it and Latin id besides the Old High German form.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest dated record is in the will of Abba, a reeve in Kent, made in 833×839 and kept in a single sheet held to be contemporary: is min willa gif me God bearnes unnan wille ðæt hit foe to londe æfter me “it is my wish, if God will grant me a child, that it shall succeed to the land after me”.^[8][9] Here, as often, hit refers to a noun of neuter gender, bearn “child”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The pronoun refers to things and to persons named by neuter nouns, and it is also the subject of impersonal verbs and expressions, as in Ðá rínde hit “then it rained”, hit gelamp “it happened” and hit wæs winter “it was winter”.^[10] In the West Saxon paradigm the genitive is his and the dative him, shared with the masculine.^[3][1]

The word lived on as Middle English hit, which as grammatical gender faded came to be used of any thing or animal already mentioned, and of a child; the h- was lost in unstressed position, giving English it.^[11][12]

Timeline

• 833×839 – ðæt hit foe to londe “that it shall succeed to the land” in the will of Abba, in a contemporary single sheet.^[8][9]
• s. ix med. – hit in the Vespasian Psalter gloss.^[13][9]
• 10th century – þonne hē hit ǣr hȳdeð “when he hides it before” in The Seafarer.^[1]
• s. x/xi – hit 17 times and hyt 6 times as nominative in the Beowulf manuscript.^[14][2]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. it, the neuter of the third-person pronoun, referring to a thing or to a person named by a neuter noun.^[10][15]
2. it as the subject of impersonal verbs and expressions (of weather, time and events).^[10]

Descendants

• Middle English hit (→ English it; Scots hid)^[1]

Related words

• hē
• hēo
• hēr
• hēodæġ

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Fulk, R. D.; Bjork, Robert E.; Niles, John D., eds. (2008), Klaeber's Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburg, 4th ed., Toronto: University of Toronto Press (glossary), p. s.v. hē
3. ^ a b Hogg, Richard M.; Fulk, R. D. (2011), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 2: Morphology, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, p. § 5.15
4. ^ Hofmann, Dietrich; Popkema, Anne Tjerk (2008), Altfriesisches Handwörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. s.v. hit
5. ^ Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 225
6. ^ a b c Hogg, Richard M.; Fulk, R. D. (2011), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 2: Morphology, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, p. § 5.14
7. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 161
8. ^ a b c The Electronic Sawyer: Online Catalogue of Anglo-Saxon Charters, revised ed. by S. E. Kelly and R. Rushforth, King's College London / University of Cambridge, esawyer.lib.cam.ac.uk, p. S 1482
9. ^ a b c Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
10. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 512
11. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
12. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
13. ^ Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 329
14. ^ Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 344
15. ^ Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 111