In Modern English, ''they'' is a third-person pronoun relating to a grammatical subject.

Morphology

In Standard Modern English, ''they'' has five distinct word forms: * ''they'': the

nominative In grammar, the nominative case (abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...

(subjective) form * ''them'': the accusative (objective, called the ' oblique'.) and a non-standard determinative form. * ''their:'' the dependent

genitive In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can al ...

(possessive) form * ''theirs'': independent

form * ''themselves'': prototypical reflexive form *''themself'': derivative reflexive form (nonstandard; now chiefly used instead of "himself or herself" as a reflexive

epicenity Epicenity is the lack of gender distinction, often reducing the emphasis on the masculine to allow the feminine. It includes androgyny – having both masculine and feminine characteristics. The adjective ''gender-neutral'' may describe epicenit ...

for ''they'' in pronominal reference to a singular

referent A referent () is a person or thing to which a name – a linguistic expression or other symbol – refers. For example, in the sentence ''Mary saw me'', the referent of the word ''Mary'' is the particular person called Mary who is being spoken of, ...

)

History

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

had a single third-person pronoun '' hē'', which had both singular and plural forms, and ''they'' wasn't among them. In or about the start of the 13th century, ''they'' was imported from a Scandinavian source ( Old Norse ''þeir'',

Old Danish The Danish language developed during the Middle Ages out of Old East Norse, the common predecessor of Danish and Swedish. It was a late form of common Old Norse. The Danish philologist Johannes Brøndum-Nielsen divided the history of Danish into ...

Old Swedish Old Swedish (Swedish language, Modern Swedish: ) is the name for two distinct stages of the Swedish language that were spoken in the Middle Ages: Early Old Swedish (), spoken from about 1225 until about 1375, and Late Old Swedish (), spoken fro ...

''þer'', ''þair''), where it was a

masculine Masculinity (also called manhood or manliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles associated with men and boys. Masculinity can be theoretically understood as socially constructed, and there is also evidence that some behaviors con ...

plural

demonstrative Demonstratives (abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic; their meaning depending on a particular frame ...

pronoun. It comes from Proto-Germanic *''thai'', nominative plural pronoun, from

PIE A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), brown sugar ( sugar pie), swe ...

*''to''-, demonstrative pronoun.

By Chaucer's time the ''th''- form has been adopted in London for the subject case only, whereas the oblique cases remain in their native form (''hem'', ''here'' < OE ''heom'', ''heora''). At the same period (and indeed before), Scots texts, such as Barbour's Bruce, have the ''th''- form in all cases.

The development in Middle English is shown in the following table. At the final stage, it had reached its modern form.

Singular ''they''

Singular ''they'' is a use of ''they'' as an epicene (gender-neutral) pronoun for a singular

. In this usage, ''they'' follows plural agreement rules (''they are'', not *''they is''), but the

semantic Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...

reference is singular. Unlike plural ''they'', singular ''they'' is only used for people. For this reason, it could be considered to have personal gender. Some people refuse to use the epicene pronoun ''they'' when referring to individuals on the basis that it is primarily a plural pronoun instead of a singular pronoun.

Word of the year

In December 2019,

Merriam-Webster Merriam-Webster, Inc. is an American company that publishes reference books and is especially known for its dictionaries. It is the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States. In 1831, George and Charles Merriam founded the company as ...

chose singular ''they'' as word of the year. The word was chosen because "English famously lacks a gender-neutral singular pronoun to correspond neatly with singular pronouns like everyone or someone, and as a consequence ''they'' has been used for this purpose for over 600 years."

Syntax

Functions

''They'' can appear as a

subject Subject ( la, subiectus "lying beneath") may refer to: Philosophy *''Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing **Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective cons ...

object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ai ...

determiner A determiner, also called determinative (abbreviated ), is a word, phrase, or affix that occurs together with a noun or noun phrase and generally serves to express the reference of that noun or noun phrase in the context. That is, a determiner m ...

or predicative complement. The reflexive form also appears as an adjunct. * Subject: ''They're there; them being there; their being there; they allowed for themselves to be there.'' * Object: ''I saw them''; ''I directed her to them; They connect to themselves.'' * Predicative complement: ''In our attempt to fight evil, we have become them''; ''They eventually felt they had become themselves.'' * Dependent

: ''I touched their top''; ''them folks are helpful'' (non-standard) * Independent determiner: ''This is theirs.'' *Adjunct: ''They did it themselves.''

Dependents

Pronouns rarely take

dependents A dependant is a person who relies on another as a primary source of income. A common-law spouse who is financially supported by their partner may also be included in this definition. In some jurisdictions, supporting a dependant may enabl ...

, but it is possible for ''they'' to have many of the same kind of dependents as other noun phrases. * Relative clause modifier: ''they who arrive late'' * Determiner: ''Sometimes, when you think, "I will show them," the them you end up showing is yourself.'' * Adjective phrase modifier: ''the real them'' * Adverb phrase external modifier: ''Not even them''

Semantics

Plural ''they'''s referents can be anything, including persons, as long as it doesn't include the speaker (which would require '' we'') or the addressee(s) (which would require ''

you In Modern English, ''you'' is the second-person pronoun. It is grammatically plural, and was historically used only for the dative case, but in most modern dialects is used for all cases and numbers. History ''You'' comes from the Proto- ...

''). Singular ''they'' can only refer to individual persons. Until the end of the 20th century, this was limited to those whose gender is unknown (e.g., ''Someone's here. I wonder what they want''; ''That person over there seems to be waving their hands at us''.).

Generic

The pronoun ''they'' can also be used to refer to an unspecified group of people, as in ''In Japan they drive on the left.'' or ''They're putting in a McDonald's across the street from the Target.'' It often refers to the authorities, or to some perceived powerful group, sometimes sinister: ''They don't want the public to know the whole truth.''

Pronunciation

According to the OED, the following pronunciations are used:

In popular culture

Them Them or THEM, a third-person plural accusative personal pronoun, may refer to: Books * ''Them'' (novel), 3rd volume (1969) in American Joyce Carol Oates' ''Wonderland Quartet'' * '' Them: Adventures with Extremists'', 2003 non-fiction by Welsh ...

is a Northern Irish band.

References

{{Modern English personal pronouns Gender-neutral pronouns