Generic antecedent

Generic antecedents are representatives of classes, indicated by a reference in ordinary language (most often a pronoun), where gender is typically unknown or irrelevant. [Mark Balhorn, [http://eng.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/32/2/79 'The Rise of Epicene They'] , "Journal of English Linguistics" 32 (2004): 79–104.] These mostly arise in generalizations and are particularly common in abstract, theoretical or strategic discourse.
* Readers of Wikipedia…
* The customer in this market…
* A typical teenager…
* Most species threatened by extinction…
* Each of the compounds analysed…Frequently, theories or strategies involving generic antecedents require consideration of individuals when designing experiments, or personalizing marketing approaches. The question of appropriate style for expressing such generic singulars in the English language became politicized in the 1970s. [ [http://www.bartleby.com/64/5.html 'Gender'] , in "The American Heritage Book of English Usage: A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English", (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1996).]

Grammatical analysis

Pronouns

Pronouns are prototypically words that replace determiner phrases (in other analyses, noun phrases). They exist in most (but not all) languages. The person, thing, phrase, clause or idea they replace is called the "antecedent" (sometimes "referent").

* The sun and the moon influence life on Earth. They…

Here "they" is a pronoun; the determiner phrase "the sun and the moon" is its antecedent. Speakers find pronouns useful when the antecedent is obvious to the hearer from the context.

Personal pronouns

English has many different kinds of pronouns. The most common pronouns in English are the personal pronouns.
* Personal pronouns: "I, you, she, he, it, we, they"These are so common because nearly all verbs require an explicit subject in English. The range of different pronouns helps make it clear to the hearer exactly what the antecedent is.
* Example: The sun and the moon influence life on Earth. It…Choosing the pronoun "it" rather than "they" (above) signals that "the sun and the moon" are not the antecedent in this case.

Number

"I", "she", "he" and "it" refer to only one person or thing [meaning in usage] and are called "singular" [label in grammar] ; "we" refers to more than one person and is called "plural". Sometimes "you" is singular, other times it is plural. This article is about the meaning in various usages of "they". The description of a pronoun as either singular or plural is called its grammatical "number".

Person

Personal pronouns in many languages can also be described according to whether they refer to the speaker (first person), the listener (second person) or to a third person or thing. "I" and "we" are first-person personal pronouns, "you" is the second-person personal pronoun, and "she", "he", "it" and "they" are all third-person personal pronouns. The description of a pronoun as first, second or third person is called its grammatical "person". "They" is a third-person, personal pronoun.

Case

English allows speakers to communicate to the hearer even more information than simply the person (1st, 2nd or 3rd) of an antecedent and the number (singular or plural).
* Oblique personal pronouns: "me", "mine", "yours", "her", "hers", "him", "his", "its", "us", "ours", "them", "theirs"When the antecedent is "not" the subject of a sentence, its alternative function [meaning in usage] is marked by a change of pronoun. This is called a change of grammatical "case" [label in grammar] . Essentially, English has two cases other than the subject case – the object case and the possessive case. Cases other than the subject case are called "oblique" cases.
* Example: You gave me that book of hers."You" is subject case, "me" is object case, and "hers" is possessive case.Therefore, when we think about how "they" is used in English, we also need to consider "them" and "theirs".

Gender

English, like most languages, does not have distinct forms to communicate the gender of first and second persons. The genders of speaker and hearer are normally obvious, unambiguous or irrelevant when they are communicating. However, gender distinctions in the third person can be very helpful.
* Example: My sister and brother disagree. She likes cars, but he does not.In contrast to the singular, English does "not" provide options in third-person, personal pronouns to distinguish gender in the plural.
* Example: My sisters and brothers disagree. The sisters like cars, but the brothers do not.The following could be used to negate the need for gender distinction, but subsequently leads to the use of a subordinate clause.
*Example: My sisters and brothers disagree; the former like cars, but the latter do not.This example is, however, rather clumsy and dated, and would scarcely be used in spoken or written English.

Summary

Practical issue

The issue addressed by this article is based on a contrast in English – the awkwardness of "making" gender distinctions in the plural and the awkwardness of "avoiding" them in the singular. Speakers of languages use words "both" to make distinctions, but also to generalize. [cite paper|title=Gender in English pronouns: Myth and reality|author=Susanne Wagner|format=PDF|url=http://www.freidok.uni-freiburg.de/volltexte/1412/pdf/Diss_Freidok.pdf|date=2004-07-22|publisher=Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg]

* Example of distinction: My mother thinks…, but my father says….
* Example of generalization: My parents believe….

What has become controversial among users of English can be seen from the following examples.
* All people get hungry, so they eat. Acceptable ("All people" is plural.)
* All people get hungry, so she eats. Incorrect (different "meaning" than first sentence)
* Each one gets thirsty, so he drinks. Disputed (Is "he" generic, or are all members of the group male?)
* ".)
* Each one gets thirsty, so he or she drinks. Awkward (especially if used repeatedly)
* When a person is tired, she sleeps. Disputed (Is "she" specific or generic?)
* When a person is tired, it sleeps. Incorrect (Pronouns for objects cannot be used to describe people.)

English guidelines before the 1980s supported the use of "he" as a singular pronoun that can refer to both men and women (generic usage). (Younger speakers use sometimes "guys" in this way in informal situations.) Many recent style guides discourage generic constructions on political grounds. Some writers prefer to alternate between male and female generic usage to provide clarity without the appearance of bias. Other speakers intentionally use female generic forms as a political or cultural statement against the conventional practice of generic use of the masculine form.

General solution

Many languages share the same issue with English. The universal conventional solution is based on the context, which is always the same—the antecedent is a representative individual of a class, whose gender is unknown or irrelevant. Normally masculine, but sometimes feminine, forms of singular pronouns are supplied, in what is called "generic" usage. The context makes the generic intent of the usage clear in communication.

* Example: An ambitious academic will publish as soon as she can.

Unless there is reason to believe the speaker thinks ambitious academics are always female, the use of "she" in this sentence must be interpreted as a generic use.

Modern problem

It is the overlap of generic use with gender role stereotyping that led to controversy in English. [Julie Foertsch and Morton Ann Gernsbacher, [http://step.psy.cmu.edu/articles/Foertsch.pdf 'In Search of Gender Neutrality: Is Singular They a Cognitively Efficient Substitute for Generic He?'] "Psychological Science" 8 (1997): 106–111.]
* A nurse should ensure she gets adequate rest.
* A police officer should maintain his fitness.
* A dancer should watch her diet carefully.
* A boss should treat his staff well.In these examples, there is very good reason to suppose that the speaker does indeed believe and that all nurses are female, or that all bosses are male.

Modern solutions

If a speaker is ideologically opposed to gender role stereotyping, he can use one of the following strategies. [Michael Quinion, [http://www.quinion.com/words/articles/genpr.htm 'Gender-Neutral Pronouns'] , 2002.]
* A boss should treat her staff well. (Use of the pronoun "opposite" to expected gender.)
* Bosses should treat their staff well. (Rephrasing the sentence.)
* A boss should treat their staff well. (Use of singular they.)
* A boss should treat eir staff well. (Rare use of a Spivak pronoun; also see gender-neutral pronouns.)There is both historical precedent for the third option, ["A person can't help their birth." William Makepeace Thackeray, "Vanity Fair", 1848, [http://thackeray.thefreelibrary.com/Vanity-Fair/41-1 c. 41] .] as well as popular contemporary usage. However, there are contemporary, as well as historical, style guides that discourage this option.There are also contexts in which "they" used with singular generic antecedent leads to ambiguity. Generic questions wanting specific answers.
* Would you like tea or coffee? "Yes". Choice is unclear.
* Would you like tea or coffee? "Tea, please".
* Did my parents leave a message? "Yes, they did". Parental figure unclear.
* Did my parents leave a message? "Yes, your mother called".

Other alternatives

Options other than generic pronouns, rephrasing in the plural, or using "they" can be well suited to some contexts, but problematic in others.
* A boss should treat her or his staff well. (Issues: cumbersome if overused, have to place genders in an order.)
* If (s)he does, it is good. (Issue: written option only.)
* Thon will be happy and so will they. (Issue: "none" of the invented pronouns – thon, xe, and many others – have been accepted into the language.) [Dennis Baron, [http://www.english.uiuc.edu/-people-/faculty/debaron/essays/epicene.htm 'The Epicene Pronouns: A Chronology of the Word That Failed'] , 2006.]
* They will be happy and so will they. (Note: "singular" they is clearly awful here.)The indefinite personal pronoun, "one", is suitably singular, personal and indefinite with respect to gender; but its very indefiniteness precludes it taking any antecedent but itself.
* One takes care of one's own.Strictly speaking, it is not even third person, it is often used as a circumlocution to refer indirectly to speaker or hearer.
* One may indeed have done something like that. (However, I am not going to admit that, in fact, I did.)
* One would do well to be very careful under the circumstances. (Watch your back)

Political opinions

Some modern prescriptivists argue from the valid use of "they" in certain contexts, to making it valid or even mandatory in all. Other prescritivists argue ideologically that generic "he" should be proscribed. Both these points of view have found many followers; however, they generally do not accurately describe the usage or rationale of the wide range of options common in the English language.

See also

* Donkey pronoun
* Epicene
* Generic mood
* Generic you
* Markedness
* Quantificational variability effect

References

External links

* Helge Lødrup. 'Norwegian Anaphors without Visible Binders'. "Journal of Germanic Linguistics" 19 (2007): 1–22. Available at http://journals.cambridge.org.
* Anna Pycha, Constance Milbrath and Stephen Eyre. [http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~pycha/Pycha_LSA2005.pdf 'Anaphora in African-American English'] . Oakland: Linguistics Society of America, 2005.
* Jeffrey T. Runner and Elsi Kaiser. ' [http://csli-publications.stanford.edu/HPSG/6/runner-kaiser.pdf Binding in Picture Noun Phrases:] Implications for Binding Theory'. In "Proceedings of the HPSG05 Conference". Edited by Stefan Müller. Lisbon: CSLI Publications, 2005.
* Marta Luján. [http://www.ucm.es/info/circulo/no9/lujan.htm 'Determiners as Modified Pronouns'] . "Círculo de lingüística aplicada a la comunicación" 9 (2002).

Literature

*Carlson, Greg. "Reference to Kinds in English". Ph.D. Thesis. University of Massachusetts Amherst, 1977.
*De Swart, H. '(In)definites and genericity'. In "Quantifiers, Deduction and Context". Edited by M. Kanazawa and others. Stanford: CSLI: 171–199.
*Wilkinson, Karina. "Studies in the Semantics of Generic Noun Phrases". Ph.D. Thesis. University of Massachusetts Amherst, 1991.