Modern English Modern English, sometimes called New English (NE) or present-day English (PDE) as opposed to Middle and Old English, is the form of the English language that has been spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England England is a Count ...

, ''they'' is a third-person

pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (Interlinear gloss, glossed ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the part of speech, parts of speech, but so ...

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 E ...

(subjective) form * ''them'': the

accusative In grammar, the accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to receive the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: "me", "him", "her", " ...

(objective, called the ' oblique'.) and a non-standard

determinative A determinative, also known as a taxogram or semagram, is an ideogram used to mark semantic categories of words in logographic scripts which helps to disambiguate interpretation. They have no direct counterpart in spoken language, though they ...

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 ...

(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 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 o ...

)

History

Old English Old English ( or , or ), 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 developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

had a single third-person pronoun , 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 Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

, Old Danish,

Old Swedish Old Swedish ( 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 from about 1375 unti ...

, ), in which it was a

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

plural In many languages, a plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated as pl., pl, , or ), is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than ...

demonstrative Demonstratives (list of glossing abbreviations, 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 ...

pronoun. It comes from

Proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...

*''thai'', nominative plural pronoun, from PIE *''to''-, demonstrative pronoun. According to '' The Cambridge History of the English Language'': The development in

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English pe ...

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 is the study of linguistic Meaning (philosophy), meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction betwee ...

reference A reference is a relationship between objects in which one object designates, or acts as a means by which to connect to or link to, another object. The first object in this relation is said to ''refer to'' the second object. It is called a ''nam ...

is singular. Unlike plural ''they'', singular ''they'' is only used for

people The term "the people" refers to the public or Common people, common mass of people of a polity. As such it is a concept of human rights law, international law as well as constitutional law, particularly used for claims of popular sovereignty. I ...

. For this reason, it could be considered to have personal

gender Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...

. 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. However, the online edition of the ''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...

'' records usage of ''they'' "referring to an individual generically or indefinitely", with examples dating to 2008–2009.

Word of the year

In December 2019,

Merriam-Webster Merriam-Webster, Incorporated is an list of companies of the United States by state, American company that publishes reference work, reference books and is mostly known for Webster's Dictionary, its dictionaries. It is the oldest dictionary pub ...

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,

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 a ...

determiner Determiner, also called determinative ( abbreviated ), is a term used in some models of grammatical description to describe a word or affix belonging to a class of noun modifiers. A determiner combines with a noun to express its reference. Examp ...

or predicative complement. 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

: "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 phrase A noun phrase – or NP or nominal (phrase) – is a phrase that usually has a noun or pronoun as its head, and has the same grammatical functions as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently ...

s. *

Relative clause A relative clause is a clause that modifies a noun or noun phrase and uses some grammatical device to indicate that one of the arguments in the relative clause refers to the noun or noun phrase. For example, in the sentence ''I met a man who wasn ...

modifier: "they ''who arrive late''". * Determiner: "Sometimes, when you think, 'I will show them', ''the'' 'them' you end up showing is yourself." *

Adjective phrase An adjective phrase (or adjectival phrase) is a phrase whose Head (linguistics), head is an adjective. Almost any grammar or syntax textbook or dictionary of linguistics terminology defines the adjective phrase in a similar way, e.g. Kesner Bland ( ...

modifier: "the ''real'' them". *

Adverb phrase In linguistics, an ''adverbial phrase'' ("AdvP") is a multi-word expression operating adverbially: its syntactic function is to modify other expressions, including verbs, adjectives, adverbs, adverbials, and sentences. Some grammars use the label ...

external modifier: "''not even'' them".

Semantics

Plural ''they'''s

s 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 In Modern English, the word "''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 ...

''). Singular ''they'' can only refer to individual persons. Until the end of the 20th century, this was limited to those whose

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 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."