The purpose of this study is to research the function and the category of the third person pronoun in the Middle Korean.
The third person pronouns such as ‘Jagya, Janae, Jagi, Jeo, Dangshin’ and ‘Yi, Gue, Dyu’ are found in the Middle Korean, the former is named as ‘the first category’ and the latter is named as ‘the second category’. These two categories are same that they indicate the third person. At the other point, however, they have certain difference. That is to say, the first category is used to reindicate the subject in sentence or to narrate case/action at the view of the subject as pronoun, and the one pronoun is chosen among ‘Jagya>Janae>Jeo’ in accordance with the subject’s position. The second category is used to narrate case/action related with the third person at the point of objective view, the one pronoun is chosen among ‘Yi, Gue, Dyu’ independent of the subject’s position.
Until now, however, the third person pronoun in the first category is regulated as the reflexive pronoun, and the third person pronoun in the second category is understood as the demonstrative pronoun, not as the personal pronoun, so it needs to make clear the conception about them. In the case of the reflexive pronoun and the third person pronoun, thereupon, the former has the lower function on the latter, it means that the main function of the first category indicate the third person and it can perform as the reflexive pronoun according to some cases. In the relation between ‘the third person pronoun’ and ‘the demonstrative pronoun’, it is clear that they indicate ‘person’, not ‘thing or place’, so they should be understood as the personal pronoun, simply not the demonstrative pronoun.