[Rumil]

Very interesting Esty,

I'd not clocked the significance in Aragorn/Eowyn exchanges.

As I remember it thee and thine etc are archaic, and therefore bring to mind legendary romances (Tristan and Isolde etc) but also archaic in that they bring to mind great leaders of old.

The major contrast here is between the hobbits' modern usage of you and yours and the 'heroic types' use of thee and thine. However the romantic use is a very telling sub-set of usage.

Also that the Fellowship are 'you and yours'-ers generally, perhaps tying in with (Denethor's?) comment that Pippin uses a strange idiom. Were the Fellowship (Gimli, Legolas, Aragorn, Boromir) using the modern forms as a more every-day form of speech?

Also backing up Selmo in that Oop North number of these archaic forms are still part of regonal dialect.