Singular They in English:
Its Origin and Developments

Hong, Gil-Dong

Hong, Gil-Dong. “Singular They in English: Its Origin and Developments.” New Korean Journal of English Language and Literature 64.1 (2022): 00-00.

Abstract

In an effort to explain the widespread use of singular they in recent years, this paper first investigates the lack of an English personal pronoun for a third-person gender-neutral singular antecedent. It empirically shows that as an epicene pronoun, generic he has been in use since the Old English period and that they, originally a plural pronoun, has assumed such a role in Middle English as the grammatical gender agreement faded away. Singular they is also said to have originated from Scandinavian languages and entered during the Middle English period. It is also said that the use of singular they has recently been endorsed by authoritative writers’ manuals, great dictionaries, mass media, and others. As a result, they has become a dominant epicene pronoun candidate for a person whose gender is unknown or even nonbinary.

(Hankuk University)

Key Words

gender, generic he, lexical gap, singular they, Middle English, grammatical change

Ⅰ. Introduction

There is a universal law that everything is changing. English is in a state of flux, and so is its grammar. Grammatical changes can occur phonetically, semantically, morphologically, syntactically, pragmatically, and so on. According to Mair and Leech (2006), the popular literature on ongoing changes in the English language tends to focus on phonetic and lexical changes rather than grammatical changes. The reason why fewer scholars involve themselves in the study of grammatical changes can be ascribed to at least two aspects. First, comparatively, it usually takes a long time for people to notice and accept such changes Second, it is more likely to proceed below the threshold of speakers’ conscious awareness.

Just as we become familiar with the McDonald’s advertising slogan ‘I’m loving it’ without noticing that ‘love’ is a stative verb, singular they has infiltrated into our daily English considerably in recent years. To our surprise and without consciousness, it can have its day in the 21st century. The latest seven years has witnessed not only a substantial increase in the number of its usages, but also its progressive recognition and widespread acceptance.

Ⅱ. The Pronoun System in Standard Modern English and Its Lexical Gap

As we can see in Table 1 above, the pronoun system in standard modern English is incomplete. There is a lexical gap in that it lacks a third-person neuter singular personal pronoun and a third-person neuter nonpersonal pronoun. Putting aside the lack of the latter pronoun, we can predict that the absence of the third-person neuter singular personal pronoun leads to some chaos in pronoun use. Consider the following examples in this respect.

(1)	a.	We do injustice if we fail to punish criminals, because they then do not receive what they deserve. (COCA)

b.	AI agents are learning to recognize and understand us, even when we talk to them in different dialects and in different languages…（COCA）

(2)	a.	The professor told me they won’t be holding office hours this week.

b.	The right candidate knows they should get an early start in the morning. Konnelly and Cowper (2016: 2)

The pronouns they in (1a) and them (1b) refer to the third-person plural human antecedents, criminals and AI agents, respectively. This is what is expected because they and its variants are used for such antecedents. However, the use of they in (2) does not conform to the traditional prescriptive English grammar: the professor and the right candidate are the third-person singular personal noun phrases, but they both are denoted by the third-person plural pronoun they. To speak of the gender of the two noun phrases, it is neuter: we cannot tell the gender of the professor and that of the right candidate. So it is the case that they is used as a pronominal substitute for a third-person common-gender singular [+human] antecedent. This use of they for a third-person gender-neutral singular antecedent with [+human] semantic features is often called singular they or epicene pronoun they. This singular they appears to be able to fill the position marked by ? in Table 1.

Ⅲ. The Origin and Evolution of Singular They

This section examines the origin of pronoun they in English from a historical perspective and the evolution of singular they. The focus will be on the adoption of they in Middle English and its new function of generic pronoun for a third-person singular individual.

1. The Origin of They

As shown in Table 1 in the previous section, pronoun they is a pronoun for the third-person plural antecedents of all genders in present English. However, they is not a pure Anglo-Saxon word and it originated from Scandinavian languages. As a departure for the better understanding of singular they, let us investigate the system of third-person plural pronouns in Old English (OE), Middle English (ME), and Early Modern English (EME). Look at Table 2 below, which is adapted from Algeo (2010: 99, 131, 165):

Of course, it took a long time for th-forms to replace Old English h-forms since such process of language change is slow and steady, and the th-forms are said to have been roughly established around 1400 years, as mentioned in Crystal (2004). In fact, Table 2 shows that both h-forms and th-forms coexisted in Middle English. It is in Early Modern English that Scandinavian th-forms fully replaced h-forms and came to be established as third-person plural pronouns in all cases.

Ⅴ. Conclusion

It has been generally said that a grammatical change is less accessible to scholars and researchers than phonetic and lexical changes for it is slow and often beyond people’s awareness. However, as a new development in English grammar, the burgeoning of singular they as an epicene pronoun in recent years has stimulated native and EFL speakers’ curiosity about the factors that trigger the emergence of its uses and endorsement.

Given this, this paper has aimed to trace the historical origin of singular they, its evolution, and its acceptance or endorsement by authorities. First, it has been demonstrated that there is a lexical gap in the pronoun system of current English: no third-person singular pronoun exists for a neuter singular person.

Third, it has been argued that with the increasing number of those who do not want to be identified either male or female and those who are against binary division of gender and endocentricism, the use of they as an singular epicene pronoun has become widespread since the early 21st century, despite prescriptive grammarians’ objection based on the mismatch between they and its referent in number agreement. This popular use of they as a singular pronoun is so pervasive that its new use is officially endorsed by dictionaries, stylebooks, and a variety of mass media. Considering this, now we have good reason to use they as an epicene pronoun and accept new grammatical change in English.

《한국대》

Works Cited

Algeo, Thomas. 2010. The Origins and Development of the English Language. 6th ed. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

American Psychological Association. 2019. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed).

Associated Press. 2017. The 2017 Associated Press Stylebook.

Balhorn, Mark. 2004. The Rise of Epicene They. Journal of English Linguistics 32.2: 79-104.

_______. 2009. Epicene Pronoun in Contemporary Newspaper Prose. American Speech 84: 391-413.

Baranowski, Maciej. 2002. Current Usage of the Epicene Pronoun in Written English. Journal of Sociolinguistics 6.3: 378-397.

Baron, Dennis. 1981. The Epicene Pronoun: The Word that Failed. American Speech 56.2: 83-97.

저자: 홍길동/한국대학교 영어영문학과/교수

원고접수일: 2022년  1월 12일	수정일: 2022년  2월  6일

게재확정일: 2022년  2월 14일

주소: 부산광역시 해운대구 중동 225

Email: hong@hankuk.ac.kr