They — Mediated Wiki

{{Short description|Third-person plural or gender-neutral pronoun}} {{Italic title}} {{About|the English personal pronoun|4=other uses|5=They (disambiguation)}} {{Redirect-distinguish|Theirs|Thiers (disambiguation){{!}}Thiers}} {{Use DMY dates|date=November 2023}} {{Wiktionary|they|them|their|theirs|themselves|themself}}

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:<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last1=Huddleston |first1=Rodney |last2=Pullum |author1-link=Rodney Huddleston |first2=Geoffrey K. |author2-link=Geoffrey K. Pullum |date=2002 |title=The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language |publisher=Cambridge University Press}}</ref>

* ''they'': the nominative (subjective) form * ''them'': the accusative (objective, called the 'oblique'.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |editor-last=Lass |editor-first=Roger |author-link=Roger Lass |date=1999 |title=The Cambridge History of the English Language |title-link=The Cambridge History of the English Language |volume=III: ''1476–1776'' |publisher=Cambridge University Press}}</ref>{{Rp|146}}) and a non-standard determinative form. * ''their:'' the dependent genitive (possessive) form * ''theirs'': independent genitive form * ''themselves'': prototypical reflexive form * ''themself'': derivative reflexive form (nonstandard; now chiefly used instead of "himself or herself" as a reflexive epicenity for ''they'' in pronominal reference to a singular referent)<ref>{{Cite web |title=themself: pronoun |work=Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/themself |publisher=Merriam-Webster |date=2021 |access-date=26 November 2023}}</ref>

==History== {{Further|Proto-Germanic pronouns|Proto-Indo-European pronouns}}

Old English had a single third-person pronoun {{lang|ang|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 {{lang|non|þeir}}, Old Danish, Old Swedish {{lang|non|þer}}, {{lang|non|þair}}), in which it was a masculine plural demonstrative pronoun. It comes from Proto-Germanic *''thai'', nominative plural pronoun, from PIE *''to''-, demonstrative pronoun.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Harper |first=Douglas |date=2017 |title=Origin and meaning of they: they (pron.) |url=https://www.etymonline.com/word/they |website=Online Etymology Dictionary |access-date=20 March 2021}}</ref> According to ''The Cambridge History of the English Language'':<ref>{{Cite book |editor-last=Blake |editor-first=Norman |editor-link=Norman Blake (academic) |date=1992 |title=The Cambridge History of the English Language |title-link=The Cambridge History of the English Language |volume=II: ''1066–1476'' |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=176 |ref=Blake (1992)}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|1=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 ({{lang|enm|hem}}, {{lang|enm|here}} < OE {{lang|ang|heom}}, {{lang|ang|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.

{| class="wikitable" |+Three stages of ''they'' in Middle English<ref>Blake (1992), p. 121</ref> ! !I !II !III |- ! Nominative |{{lang|enm|þei}} |{{lang|enm|þei}} |{{lang|enm|þei}} |- ! Oblique |{{lang|enm|hem}} |{{lang|enm|hem}} |{{lang|enm|hem}} ~ {{lang|enm|þem}} |- ! Genitive |{{lang|enm|her[e]}} |{{lang|enm|her[e]}} ~ {{lang|enm|þeir}} |{{lang|enm|þeir}} |}

==Singular ''they''== {{Main|Singular they}}

Singular ''they'' is a use of ''they'' as an epicene (gender-neutral) pronoun for a singular referent.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Bjorkman |first=B. |date=2017 |title=Singular They and the Syntactic Representation of Gender in English |journal=Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics |volume=2 |page=80 |doi=10.5334/gjgl.374 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title='He or She' Versus 'They' |url=http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/he-or-she-versus-they |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111215021401/http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/he-or-she-versus-they |archive-date=15 December 2011 |work=OxfordDictionaries.com |date=15 December 2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |access-date=26 November 2023}}</ref> In this usage, ''they'' follows plural agreement rules (''they are'', not *''they is''), but the semantic 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.<ref>{{Cite web |first1=Alex |last1=Hanna |first2=Nikki L. |last2=Stevens |first3=Os |last3=Keyes |first4=Maliha |last4=Ahmed |date=3 May 2019 |title=Actually, We Should ''Not'' All Use They/Them Pronouns |url=https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/actually-we-should-not-all-use-they-them-pronouns/ |department=''Voices'' (blog) |work=ScientificAmerican.com |access-date=26 November 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Murphy |first=Jessica |date=4 November 2016 |title=Toronto Professor Jordan Peterson Takes on Gender-Neutral Pronouns |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37875695 |publisher=BBC News |access-date=26 November 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine |last=McBride |first=Jason |date=25 January 2017 |title=The Pronoun Warrior |url=https://torontolife.com/city/u-t-professor-sparked-vicious-battle-gender-neutral-pronouns/ |magazine=Toronto Life |access-date=26 November 2023}}</ref> However, the online edition of the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' records usage of ''they'' "referring to an individual generically or indefinitely", with examples dating from ''a''1405–2019.<ref>{{cite web |title=they: pronoun |url=https://www.oed.com/dictionary/they_pron?tab=meaning_and_use&tl=true#1288185420 |at=I.2.b. |date=2013 |work=Oxford English Dictionary |edition=online |publisher=Oxford University Press |access-date=26 November 2023}}</ref>

===Word of the year=== In December 2019, Merriam-Webster 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."<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Locker |first=Melissa |date=10 December 2019 |title=Merriam Webster Names 'They' As Its Word of the Year for 2019 |url=https://time.com/5746516/merriam-webster-word-of-the-year-2019/ |magazine=Time |access-date=10 December 2019}}</ref>

== Syntax == === Functions === ''They'' can appear as a subject, object, determiner or predicative complement.<ref name=":1" /> The reflexive form also appears as an adjunct.

* Subject: "''They''{{'}}re there"; "''them'' being there"; "''their'' being 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: "I touched ''their'' car"; "''them'' folks are helpful" (non-standard). * Independent determiner: "This is ''theirs''." * Adjunct: "They did it ''themselves''."

=== Dependents === Pronouns rarely take dependents, 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 does not include the speaker (which would require ''we'') or the addressee(s) (which would require ''you''). 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.").<ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Lagunoff |first=Rachel |date=1997 |title=Singular They |type=PhD |publisher=University of California, Los Angeles |oclc=39259660}}</ref>

===Generic=== The pronoun ''they'' can also be used to refer to an unspecified group of people<ref>{{Cite Cambridge Dictionaries |they |access-date=2025-08-25}}</ref>, as in "In Japan ''they'' drive on the left", or "''They'' are putting in a new restaurant across the street." 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."

==See also== * English personal pronouns * {{Section link|Non-binary#Pronouns and titles}} * Generic antecedents * Object pronoun * Possessive pronoun * Spivak pronoun * Subject pronoun

==References== {{Reflist}}

{{Modern English personal pronouns}}