Antecedents for singular they

Syntax tree showing coreference in sentence (14) a

Generally speaking, there are three kinds of antecedents with which the singular they can be used.^[38]

• In (14), singular they occurs with a quantified singular antecedent or a singular antecedent of unknown gender.
• In (15), singular they occurs with a singular antecedent known to be nonbinary or ungendered.
• In (16), singular they occurs with a singular antecedent of any gender, with no restriction on description or name.

In examples (14-16), subscript_i indicates coreference; moreover, examples such as (15) and (16) are sometimes referred to as 'referential they'.^[39][40]

(14) a. Anyonei who thinks theyi need more time should ask for an extension.[38]

    b. The personi at the door left before I could see who theyi were.[38]

(15) a. Kellyi said theyi were leaving early.[38]

     b. The strongest studenti will present theiri paper next.[38]

Syntax tree showing coreference in sentence (16) a

(16) a. Mariai wants to send theiri students on the field trip.[38]

     b. We heard from Arthuri that theyi needed time to think about the idea.[38]

     c. We asked [the first girl in line]i to introduce themself/themselvesi.[38]

     d. Your brotheri called to say theyi would be late.[38]

Speaker variation

In the twenty-first century, syntactic research differentiates three groups of English speakers which can be identified, based on their judgments about pronoun usage for (14), (15) and (16).^[30][38]

• Group A speakers judge only (14) to be acceptable. Such speakers reject "referential" singular when they know the referent's binary gender, which is taken to indicate that gender features are contrastive in their lexicons. For this group of speakers, usage of singular they in (14) is acceptable to because the quantified antecedent anyone and the definite description the person lack a gender specification.
• Group B speakers judge both (14) and (15) to be acceptable. For these speakers, gender is thought to still be contrastive in their lexicons; however, they have created special entries for individuals that use the singular they pronoun.
• Group C speakers judge (14), (15) and (16) to be acceptable. It has been proposed that gender is losing its featural contrast in these speakers' lexicons.

A recent study by Kirby Conrod found these speaker groups to be correlated with age and gender identity.^[39] Relative to age, participants of all ages accepted the usage in (14), whereas younger participants rated usage of referential they in (15) and (16) higher than did their older counterparts. Relative to gender identity, non-binary and transgender participants rated referential they higher than did cisgender participants. Elsewhere, cisgender speakers with at least one trans or non-binary family member have also been found to rate all three cases as acceptable.^[38] Another study found a correlation between resistance to the second and third uses and prescriptivist attitudes about language.^[41]

Work by Keir Moulton and colleagues, published in 2020, has also found that the presence of a linguistic antecedent — which is the case for examples (14), (15), and (16) — significantly improves the acceptability judgments of singular they. In sentences with a linguistic antecedent, such as (17a), the use of singular they is judged to be equally acceptable whether or not the hearer knows the (binary) gender of the referent. In sentences where singular they is purely deictic and has no linguistic antecedent, such as (17b), the use of singular they is judged to be less acceptable than the use of a singular gendered pronoun (such as he or she) when the hearer knows the referent's (binary) gender. The authors suggest that the use of a gender-neutral antecedent (e.g. server or reporter) may signal the irrelevance of gender in the discourse context, making singular they more acceptable. Additionally, having a linguististic antecedent clarified that the speaker was referring to a singular antecedent, rather than a plural one. In the deictic case, without a linguistic antecedent, these signals were not overt, and the speakers' judgment depended more on their experience with the pronoun itself.^[40]

Type of antecedent affects acceptability of singular their (subscript _i denotes coreference)^[40]

(17) a. The reporteri said that theiri cellphone was recording the whole interview.
        Note: judged as more acceptable

     b. Theyi said that theiri cellphone was recording the whole interview. 
        Note: judged as less acceptable

Another study found an effect of social distance on speaker judgments of singular they use.^[42] Usage was judged to be more acceptable when the speaker was not personally close with the referent, compared to use for referents with whom the speaker was personally close.^[42] The authors suggested that, in the former case, the referent's gender may be less likely to be known or relevant.^[42]

Generic he

Forms of the pronoun he were used for both males and females during the Middle English and Modern English periods. Susanne Wagner observed that "There was rather an extended period of time in the history of the English language when the choice of a supposedly masculine personal pronoun (him) said nothing about the gender or sex of the referent."^[43] An early example of prescribing the use of he to refer to a person of unknown gender is Anne Fisher's 1745 grammar book A New Grammar.^[44] Older editions of Fowler also took this view.^[45] This usage continues to this day:

(18) a. The customer brought his purchases to the cashier for checkout.

     b. In a supermarket, a customer can buy anything he needs.

     c. When a customer argues, always agree with him.

This may be compared to usage of the word man for humans in general (although that was the original sense of the word "man" in the Germanic languages, much as the Latin word for "human in general", homo, came to mean "male human"—which was vir, in Latin—in most of the Romance languages).

(19) a. All men are created equal.

     b. Man cannot live by bread alone.

The use, in formal English, of he, him or his as a gender-neutral pronoun has traditionally been considered grammatically correct.^[46] For example, William Safire in his "On Language" column in The New York Times approved of the use of generic he, mentioning the mnemonic phrase "the male embraces the female".^[47] A reader replied with an example of use of the purportedly gender-neutral he, as in (20). Such examples point to the fact indiscriminate use of generic he leads to non-sensical violations of semantic gender agreement.^[48]

(20) "The average American needs the small routines of getting ready for work.
      As he shaves or blow-dries his hair or pulls on his panty-hose,
      he is easing himself by small stages into the demands of the day."
      (C. Badendyck, The New York Times (1985);[49] as quoted by Miller and Swift.[48])

The use of generic he has increasingly been a source of controversy, as it can be perceived as reflecting a positive bias towards men and a male-centric society, and a negative bias against women.^[50] In some contexts, the use of he, him or his as a gender-neutral pronoun may give a jarring or ridiculous impression:

(21) a. "... everyone will be able to decide for himself whether or not to have an abortion."
         (Albert Bleumenthal, N.Y. State Assembly (cited in Longman 1984,
          as quoted in Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English Usage[51]

     b. "... the ideal that every boy and girl should be so equipped
         that he shall not be handicapped in his struggle for social progress..."
         (C. C. Fries, American English Grammar (1940), quoted in Reader's Digest 1983;
          as cited in Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English Usage[51]

     c. "... She and Louis had a game—who could find the ugliest photograph of himself."
         (Joseph P. Lash, Eleanor and Franklin (1971), quoted in Reader's Digest 1983;
          as cited in Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English Usage)[51]

The use of generic he has also been seen as prejudicial by some, as in the following cases:

• The Massachusetts Medical Society effectively blocked membership of female physicians on the grounds that the society's by-laws used the pronoun he when referring to members.^[48]
• The Persons Case, the legal battle over whether Canadian women counted as legal persons eligible to sit in the Senate, partially turned on use of "he" to refer to a (generic) person qualified to be a senator.^[52]

Avoidance of the generic he is seen by proponents of non-sexist writing as indicating that the purportedly gender-neutral he is in fact not gender-neutral since it "brings a male image to mind".^[48] The same would apply to the generic she, bringing a female image to mind. She has traditionally been used as a generic pronoun when making generalizations about people belonging to a group when most members of that group are assumed to be female:^[48]

(22) a. A secretary should keep her temper in check.

     b. A nurse must always be kind to her patients.

The 19th and 20th centuries saw an upsurge in consciousness and advocacy of gender equality, and this has led in particular to advocacy for gender-neutral language. In this context, the usage of generic he has declined in favor of other alternatives.

He or she, (s)he

To disambiguate contexts where a referent encompasses both males and females, periphrasis is used. Though cumbersome, this solution is attested with the full range of English pronouns, include the subject pronouns he or she (23), the object pronouns him or her (24), the possessive pronoun his or hers (25), and the reflective pronouns himself or herself (26). In writing, these periphrastic forms are sometimes abbreviated to he/she, (s)he, s/he, him/her, his/her, himself/herself, hers/his, but are not easily abbreviated in verbal communication.^[53] With the exception of (s)he and s/he, a writer does in principle have the choice of which pronoun to place first. However, usage indicates that the masculine pronouns is most often mentioned first.

(23) a. If any employee needs to take time off,
        s/he should contact the Personnel Department.[53]
  
     b. Talk to your doctor and see if s/he knows of any local groups.[54]

     c. Each employee must sign the register when she/he enters or leaves.[55]

     d. Read to children and let them participate from time to time by telling them what
        they think the author would add if she or he was present with them.[56]

(24) a. How often do you perform small acts of kindness for your partner
        (like making him or her coffee in the morning)?.[57]

     b. Clearly, no one in the entire United States simply meets someone,
        talks with him or her a while, and falls in love any more.[58]

(25) a. We must fight the tradition that forces the actor to accept poverty
        as a precondition of his or her profession.[56]

     b. [insert example]

(26) a. ... at the collegiate level the student must advocate for himself or herself.[59]

     b. ... no student, of any background, should be expected at the outset
        to recognize him or herself in it.[60]

     c.  Everyone will improve him/herself in his/her area ...[61]

Some observers, such as the linguist James McCawley, suggest that the use of periphrastic forms may promote stereotypes: "he and she [can foster] the standard sexual stereotypes [in that] if you say he or she, you imply that women aren't included unless they are specifically mentioned, and you make it easier to talk about cases where only one sex is included than where both are."^[62]

Alternation of she and he

Authors sometimes employ rubrics for selecting she or he such as:

• Use the gender of the primary author.
• Alternate between "she" and "he".
• Alternate by paragraph or chapter.
• Use she and he to make distinctions between two groups of people.

For human children

In Modern English, pronouns referring to adult humans are typically gendered: feminine she, masculine he. However, in some contexts, children may be referred to with the gender-neutral pronoun it. When not referring specifically to children, it is not generally applied to people, even in cases where their gender is unknown.

The 1985 edition of the Quirk et al. grammar observes that whereas he and she are used for entities treated as people (including anthropomorphized entities), the pronoun it is normally used for entities not regarded as persons. But the pronoun it can be used of children in some circumstances, for instance when the sex is indefinite or when the writer has no emotional connection to the child, as in a scientific context lsuch as (26).^[65] According to The Handbook of Non-Sexist Writing (1995), it is also sometimes the "obvious" choice for children.^[66] Examples given include (27a), and the more colloquial (27b). It may even be used when the child's sex is known: In the passage given in (27c), the characters refer to the boy-child at the center of the narrative as a he, but then the narrator refers to it as an it. In this case, the child has yet to be developed into a character that can communicate with the reader.

(27) a. A child learns to speak the language of its environment.
        (Quirk et al., A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (1985), p. 316–317, 342)
        
     b. To society, a baby's sex is second in importance to its health. 
        (Miller & Swift, The Handbook of Non-Sexist Writing (1995), p. 58)

     c. "He looks like nobody but himself," said Mrs. Owens, firmly.
         ... It was then that ... the child opened its eyes wide in wakefulness.
         It stared around it ...
       (Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book (2008), p. 25)

For non-human animals

The Quirk et al. 1985 grammar states that the use of gendered he or she is optional for non-human animals of known sex.^[65] It gives the following example, which illustrates the use of both the gender-neutral possessive its and the gendered possessive her to refer to a bird:

(28) The robin builds its nest in a well-chosen position ...
     and, after the eggs have hatched, the mother bird feeds her young there for several weeks ...
     (Quirk et al., A comprehensive grammar of the English language (1985), p. 316–317, 342)

Lack of gender contrasts in spoken language

Traditionally, the third person pronoun in Mandarin is gender-neutral. In spoken standard Mandarin, there is no gender distinction in personal pronouns: tā can mean 'he' or 'she' (or even 'it' for non-human objects). Although it is claimed that when the antecedent of the spoken pronoun tā is unclear, native speakers assume it is a male person,^[121] no evidence is given to support this claim. Many studies instead demonstrate the opposite: Mandarin speakers do not differentiate pronoun genders in the composition of the preverbal message that guides grammatical encoding during language production.^[122] Even proficient bilingual Mandarin-English learners do not process gender information in the conceptualizer.^[123] As a result, Mandarin speakers often mix up the gendered pronouns of European languages in speech.^[124] Even if they seldom make other types of errors, native Mandarin speakers can make such pronoun errors when speaking in English. This is even the case after they have been living in an immersive environment and after having attained a relatively high English level.^[125]

Emergence of gender contrasts via orthography

Although spoken Mandarin remains ungendered, a specific written form for 'she' (她 tā) was created in the early twentieth century under the influence of European languages. In today's written Chinese, the same sound is written with different characters: 他 (tā) for 'he', 她 (tā) for 'she' and 它 (tā) for 'it'. However, such distinction did not exist before the late 1910s. There was only 他 (tā) as a general third person pronoun (he/she/it'), which did not specify gender or humanness.

In 1917, the influential poet and linguist Liu Bannong borrowed the Old Chinese graph 她 (tā, with the radical nǚ 女 which means 'female') into the written language to specifically represent 'she'. As a result, the old character 他 (tā), which previously could also refer to females, has become sometimes restricted to meaning 'he' only in written texts. The character 他 has the radical rén (人) with means 'human', which also shows it originally was a generic term for people in general instead of a term for males, which should take the radical for male, nán (男), like other Chinese characters that represent specifically male concepts.^[126]

The creation of gendered pronouns in Chinese orthography was part of the May Fourth Movement to modernize Chinese culture, and specifically an attempt to assert sameness between Chinese and European languages, which generally have gendered pronouns.^[121] The leaders of the movement also coined other characters, such as 它 for objects, 牠 (radical: niú 牛, "cow") for animals, and 祂 (radical: shì 示, 'spirit') for gods. Their pronunciations were all tā. The latter two have fallen out of use in mainland China.

Liu and other writers of that period tried to popularize a different pronunciation for the feminine pronoun, including yi from the Wu dialect and tuo from a literary reading, but these efforts failed, and all forms of the third-person pronoun retain identical pronunciation. (This situation of identical pronunciation with split characters is present not only in Mandarin but also in many other varieties of Chinese.^[126])

The Cantonese third-person-singular pronoun is keui⁵ (佢), and may refer to people of any gender. For a specifically female pronoun, some writers replace the person radical rén (亻) with the female radical nǚ (女), forming the character keui⁵ (姖). However, this analogous variation to tā is neither widely accepted in standard written Cantonese nor grammatically or semantically required. Moreover, while the character keui⁵ (佢) has no meaning in classical Chinese, the character keui⁵ (姖) has a separate meaning unrelated to its dialectic use in standard or classical Chinese.^[127]

There is a recent trend on the Internet for people to write "TA" in Latin script, derived from the pinyin romanization of Chinese, as a gender-neutral pronoun.^[128][129]

For second-person pronouns, 你 is used for both genders. In addition, the character 妳 has sometimes been used as a female second-person pronoun in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Emergence of gendered third-person forms

Pure personal pronouns do not exist in traditional Japanese, as pronouns are generally dropped. In addition, reference to a person is using their name with a suffix such as the gender-neutral san added to it. For example:

'She (Ms. Saitō) came' would be 斎藤さんが来ました (Saitō-san ga kimashita).

In modern Japanese, kare (彼) is the male and kanojo (彼女) the female third-person pronouns. Historically, kare was a word in the demonstrative paradigm (i.e., a system involving demonstrative prefixes, ko-, so-, a- (historical: ka-), and do-), used to point to an object that is physically far but psychologically near. The feminine counterpart kanojo, on the other hand, is a combination of kano (adnominal (rentaishi) version of ka-) and jo ('woman'), coined for the translation of its Western equivalents. It was not until the Meiji period that kare and kanojo were commonly used as the masculine and feminine pronoun in the same way as their Western equivalents. Although their usage as the Western equivalent pronouns tends to be infrequent—because pronouns tend to be dropped—kare-shi and kanojo are commonly used today to mean 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend' respectively.^[130]

Emergence of gendered first-person forms

First-person pronouns, ore, boku, and atashi, while not explicitly carrying gender, can strongly imply gender based on inherent levels of politeness or formality as well as hierarchical connotations.^[131] While boku and ore are traditionally characterized as masculine pronouns, atashi is characterized as feminine. In addition, of the two masculine-leaning pronouns, boku is considered to be less masculine than ore and often connote a softer form of masculinity. When wishing to connote a sense of authority and confidence to their interlocutors, male speakers tend to use the first-person form ore.^[131]