Concept
Singular they
Related concepts (17)
He (pronoun)
In Modern English, he is a singular, masculine, third-person pronoun. In Standard Modern English, he has four shapes representing five distinct word forms: he: the nominative (subjective) form him: the accusative (objective) form (also called the oblique case) his: the dependent and independent genitive (possessive) forms himself: the reflexive form Old English had a single third-person pronoun — from the Proto-Germanic demonstrative base *khi-, from PIE *ko- "this" — which had a plural and three genders in the singular.
Reflexive pronoun
A reflexive pronoun is a pronoun that refers to another noun or pronoun (its antecedent) within the same sentence. In the English language specifically, a reflexive pronoun will end in -self or -selves, and refer to a previously named noun or pronoun (myself, yourself, ourselves, themselves, etc.). English intensive pronouns, used for emphasis, take the same form. In generative grammar, a reflexive pronoun is an anaphor that must be bound by its antecedent (see binding).
Deixis
In linguistics, deixis (ˈdaɪksᵻs, ˈdeɪksᵻs) is the use of general words and phrases to refer to a specific time, place, or person in context, e.g., the words tomorrow, there, and they. Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is fixed but their denoted meaning varies depending on time and/or place. Words or phrases that require contextual information to be fully understood—for example, English pronouns—are deictic. Deixis is closely related to anaphora.
Possessive
A possessive or ktetic form (abbreviated or ; from possessivus; κτητικός) is a word or grammatical construction indicating a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict ownership, or a number of other types of relation to a greater or lesser degree analogous to it. Most European languages feature possessive forms associated with personal pronouns, like the English my, mine, your, yours, his and so on. There are two main ways in which these can be used (and a variety of terminologies for each): Together with a noun, as in my car, your sisters, his boss.
They
In Modern English, they is a third-person pronoun relating to a grammatical subject. In Standard Modern English, they has five distinct word forms: they: the nominative (subjective) form them: the accusative (objective, called the 'oblique'.) 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) Old English had a single third-person pronoun hē, which had both singular and plural forms, and they wasn't among them.
Gender in English
A system of grammatical gender, whereby every noun was treated as either masculine, feminine, or neuter, existed in Old English, but fell out of use during the Middle English period; therefore, Modern English largely does not have grammatical gender. Modern English lacks grammatical gender in the sense of all noun classes requiring masculine, feminine, or neuter inflection or agreement; however, it does retain features relating to natural gender with particular nouns and pronouns (such as woman, daughter, husband, uncle, he and she) to refer specifically to persons or animals of one or other sexes and neuter pronouns (such as it) for sexless objects.
One (pronoun)
One is an English language, gender-neutral, indefinite pronoun that means, roughly, "a person". For purposes of verb agreement it is a third-person singular pronoun, though it sometimes appears with first- or second-person reference. It is sometimes called an impersonal pronoun. It is more or less equivalent to the Scots "a body", the French pronoun on, the German/Scandinavian man, and the Spanish uno. It can take the possessive form one's and the reflexive form oneself, or it can adopt those forms from the generic he with his and himself.