In Modern English, ''they'' is a third-person

pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun ( abbreviated ) 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 parts of speech, but some modern theorists would n ...

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 ...

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

accusative The accusative case ( abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark 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,' 'us,' and ‘th ...

(objective, called the '

oblique Oblique may refer to: * an alternative name for the character usually called a slash (punctuation) ( / ) *Oblique angle, in geometry * Oblique triangle, in geometry * Oblique lattice, in geometry * Oblique leaf base, a characteristic shape of the ...

'.) 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 ma ...

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)

History

Old English 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 Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is 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 of Scandinavia and t ...

''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 ( 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 ...

''þer'', ''þair''), where it was a masculine

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

demonstrative pronoun. It comes from

Proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic bran ...

*''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 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 ...

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 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 epic ...

(gender-neutral) pronoun for a singular referent. 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 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 '' name'' ...

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

people A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of proper ...

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

gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures us ...

. 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, determiner 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: ''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, but it is possible for ''they'' to have many of the same kind of dependents as other

noun phrases In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently o ...

. *

Relative clause A relative clause is a clause that modifies a noun or noun phraseRodney D. Huddleston, Geoffrey K. Pullum, ''A Student's Introduction to English Grammar'', CUP 2005, p. 183ff. and uses some grammatical device to indicate that one of the arguments ...

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 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 (1996:499), Crystal ( ...

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. Adverbial phrases can be div ...

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''). 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 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 Wels ...

is a Northern Irish band.

References

{{Modern English personal pronouns Gender-neutral pronouns