| Summary: | The study examines competition between reflexive and non-reflexive possessive pronouns in Jan Blahoslav’s translation of the New Testament. It was published for the first time in 1564 and was developed further in pre-White-Mountain Brethren New Testament versions. Blahoslav’s translation came about in a period when two rather systematic but opposing solutions, with respect to possessive pronouns related to the first and second persons, existed. There was the distribution of reflexive pronouns described in the Náměšť Grammar (1533), on the one hand, which is in fact in correspondence with the present-day rules, and, on the other hand, the approach applied by the Melantrich Bible of 1556/1557, which introduced the replacement of reflexive pronouns with non-reflexive ones. The study demonstrates that Blahoslav chose the middle way, using reflexive pronouns in about half of the possible cases. The subsequent New Testaments of the Unity of the Brethren changed, however, the distribution in favour of reflexives. The first and less systematic step was taken by the Six-Volume Kralice Bible (1579–1593/1594) and the decisive one by the New Testament of 1601. As a result, the distribution in the latter edition as well as the following Kralice Bible of 1613 virtually concurs with Modern Czech.
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