than two-way: Weak declension: Preceded by a definite word. Example: de goede man (the good man). Mixed declension: Preceded by an indefinite word. Example: een goede man (a good man). Strong declension: Not preceded by any word. Example: goede man (good man). This distinction still exists in modern German. In modern Dutch, the mixed and strong declensions have fallen together, becoming the indefinite declension, while the weak declension remains as the definite declension. Adjectives ending in -en (e.g. houten, koperen) did not receive any endings, like in modern Dutch. Weak declension Mixed declension The masculine and feminine endings in -en and -e of the indefinite article were frequently dropped even in written language. However, the endings in -en and -e of een, geen, mijn, uw, zijn, hun, and haar were strictly maintained in government and administrative documents until 1946/7. Strong declension There also was a special vocative form for the neuter singular: Lieve kind (Sweet child). However, this form was not widely accepted, and the nominative was used instead. Pronouns and determiners Most pronouns and determiners followed the strong adjective declension. Some pronouns (such as iemand, iets, elkaar) declined as nouns and had only -s in the genitive but no endings otherwise. Those that were irregular in some way are given here. Personal pronouns Uniquely, modern Dutch retains the use of cases in the personal pronouns. The older forms were the same as the modern ones, with the modern object form used for both the dative and accusative, and the subject form for the nominative. For the genitive, the possessive determiners (which were fully inflected, see below) were used, but there were also special pronoun forms which used the genitive form of the possessive (ending -er). An exception was the third-person plural. The standard prescribed that hen was the accusative form, while hun was the dative. Possessive determiners The possessive determiners declined like strong adjectives. In modern Dutch, they don't decline at all, except for ons. Like in modern Dutch, a different declension was used when the possessives were used as nouns. This declension resembled the strong declension of nouns in the singular, but with an extra -e added in many cases. In the plural, the strong adjective declension was used, but the neuter nominative/accusative had only -e, not -en. Demonstratives The proximal pronoun deze: The distal pronoun die: The interrogative pronoun wie (who) declined the same way. Historical overview