3.2 Frequency in the King James Bible In the King James Bible 23,439 cases have been found in which a variant of the second person pronoun is used regardless of plural or singular forms. The number of y-forms in the King James Bible is 8384, which only represent 35.77% of the total number of second person pronominal forms. Whereas the t-forms, on the other hand, constitutes 64.23%, with 15055 cases (Table 1). The predominant use of the t-forms as second person pronouns in the original text of the King James Bible could be seen as problematic, when taking into consideration, that in more modern translations like the New King James Version of the Bible all of those semantic distinctions are lost due to the demise of the t-forms altogether. Table 1. Distribution of the y-forms and t-forms in the King James Bible 3.3 Example from the King James Bible In this example, God speaks to Moses about the mission he and his brother Aaron were going to carry through. In the King James Version it is clear that God, even though he speaks only to Moses, is going to teach both men what to do. In more modern translations this fact can easily be missed when the y-form of the second person pronoun is used consistently and there is no distinction made between singular and plural. …show more content…
In the English language of the EMod period the use of thou is depending on affective as well as social circumstances, which makes a semantic distinction almost unfeasible. Furthermore, when it comes to Shakespeare’s plays, there are instances of variations between the pronoun forms within a single conversation among two characters, which makes it difficult to apply the power and solidarity model of Brown and Gilman (cf. Wales 1983 108 ff.). This back and forth between the neutral you and the noteworthy thou forms of address can be explained as a change of emotion, such as affection, respect, despite or temper (cf. Eagleson 1971: