Grammatical Analysis
According to the traditional analysis, English personal pronouns are typically used to refer backward or forward within a sentence to a noun phrase (which may be a simple noun).
| Nominative (subject) | Accusative (object) | Prenominal possessive | Predicative possessive | Reflexive | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| He | He laughs. | I hug him. | His hair grows. | I use his. | He feeds himself. |
| She | She laughs. | I hug her. | Her hair grows. | I use hers. | She feeds herself. |
| Prototypical they | When my children watch "The Simpsons", they laugh. | Whether they win or lose, I hug them. | As long as people live, their hair grows. | Most of my friends have cell phones, so I use theirs. | The children feed themselves. |
| Singular they | When I tell someone a joke they laugh. | When I greet a friend I hug them. | When someone does not get a haircut, their hair grows long. | If my mobile phone runs out of power, a friend that I am with lets me borrow theirs. | Each child feeds themself. |
| Generic he | When I tell someone a joke he laughs. | When I greet a friend I hug him. | When someone does not get a haircut, his hair grows long. | If my mobile phone runs out of power, a friend that I am with lets me borrow his. | Each child feeds himself. |
Plural
- All good students do their homework.
Generic (indeterminate number)
- A good student is known for doing his homework OR
- A good student is known for doing their homework
Singular
- Mary is known for doing her homework
In the middle two of these example sentences, traditional grammars speak of the pronoun referring to a good student. However, following analysis by Quine, writers like Lewis (above) understand structures involving generic antecedents to be a logically distinct class. Pinker notes the pronouns are not in fact referring to anything in particular. Geoffrey Pullum uses the logical, rather than grammatical, term bound variable to describe such expressions.
Irrespective of how such cases are explained grammatically, however, both are well-formed English sentences. Both are attested in English literature prior to the 20th century, and both are still attested in 21st century English.(
Singular they, although morphologically a plural pronoun, is often used in those circumstances when an indefinite number is signified by an indefinite singular antecedent; for example,
- The person you mentioned, are they coming?, not *... is they coming?
This is analogous to the pronoun you, which originally was only plural, but by about 1700 replaced thou for singular referents, while retaining the plural verb form. Some uses of singular they follow a grammatical rule whereby singular indefinite antecedents (such as everyone, anyone, no one, and all) are followed by a coordinate or independent clause containing the plural pronoun 'they'. The plural reflexive form themselves is used as well; with some speakers using the singular form themself, in particular with semantically singular they.
Even when the gender is known, they is sometimes found with a generic referent. For example: "A teenage boy rarely thinks about their future."
Many other modern uses follow the prescription of gender-neutral English in the style manuals of various organizations. As the syntactically singular third-person pronouns of English are all either gender-specific (he and she) or inappropriate for reference to people (it), singular they is also often used where the sex of the referent is either unknown or irrelevant:
- A child becomes an adult when they turn 18.
- Someone called for you, but they did not leave a message.
- One person died early Sunday when the all-terrain vehicle they were riding hit a tree that had fallen over a road.
Read more about this topic: Singular they
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