For men I can ask
"Is this his book?"
and
"Give him his book".
What is the parallel for the women?
"Is this her book"?
and
"Give her her book"?
If so, why do the men have two kinds of possessive forms (his, him) while the women have only one form (her, her)
Best Answer
Old English (for the sake of simplicity, English before the Norman Conquest in the year 1066) had declensions, like German. The feminine third person singular genitive and dative forms of the pronoun were the same (hire) whereas the masculine forms were his and him.