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
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 ...
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
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, ...
. 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
Adjunct may refer to:
* Adjunct (grammar), words used as modifiers
* Adjunct professor, a rank of university professor
* Adjuncts, sources of sugar used in brewing
* Adjunct therapy used to complement another main therapeutic agent, either to impr ...
.
* 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
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 ...
: ''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.
See also
*
English personal pronouns
The English personal pronouns are a subset of English pronouns taking various forms according to grammatical number, number, grammatical person, person, grammatical case, case and natural gender. Modern English has very little inflection of nouns ...
*
Genderqueer
Non-binary and genderqueer are umbrella terms for gender identities that are not solely male or femaleidentities that are outside the gender binary. Non-binary identities fall under the transgender umbrella, since non-binary people typically ...
*
Generic antecedents
*
Object pronoun
*
Possessive pronoun
A possessive or ktetic form (Glossing abbreviation, abbreviated or ; from la, possessivus; grc, κτητικός, translit=ktētikós) is a word or grammatical construction used to indicate a relationship of possession (linguistics), possessio ...
*
Spivak pronoun
*
Subject pronoun
In linguistics, a subject pronoun is a personal pronoun that is used as the subject of a verb. Subject pronouns are usually in the nominative case for languages with a nominative–accusative alignment pattern. On the other hand, a language with ...
References
{{Modern English personal pronouns
Gender-neutral pronouns