In December 2019, Merriam-Webster chose singular they as word of the year. 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. For this reason, it could be considered to have personal gender. Unlike plural they, singular they is only used for people. In this usage, they follows plural agreement rules ( they are, not * they is), but the semantic reference is singular. Singular they is a use of they as an epicene (gender-neutral) pronoun for a singular referent. Three stages of they in Middle English : 121 At the final stage, it had reached its modern form. The development in Middle English is shown in the following table. At the same period (and indeed before), Scots texts, such as Barbour's Bruce, have the th- form in all cases. īy 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). It comes from Proto-Germanic * thai, nominative plural pronoun, from PIE * to-, demonstrative pronoun. In or about the start of the 13th century, they was imported from a Scandinavian source ( Old Norse þeir, Old Danish, Old Swedish þer, þair), where it was a masculine plural demonstrative pronoun. Old English had a single third-person pronoun hē, which had both singular and plural forms, and they wasn't among them. Further information: Proto-Germanic pronouns and Proto-Indo-European pronouns
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |