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I've put a bit of work into redoing some of the obviously biased information in the page that makes the page a violation of WP:NPOV. I have not removed the NPOV tag because I am not sure if everyone is in agreement about the page's neutrality. ( Justyn 18:35, 17 April 2007 (UTC))
Alastair Haines: Please provide some evidence for your claim that "singular they" does not mean "the use of they/them/c. with a grammatically singular antecedent." I think it's great that you want to explain which uses of singular they are traditional and which are relatively new; but it's simply not acceptable for you to redefine the term "singular they" to push a specific agenda, and it really looks like that's what you're trying to do here.
— Ruakh TALK 19:13, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
“ | 1 a : those ones -- used as third person pronoun serving as the plural of he, she, or it or referring to a group of two or more individuals not all of the same sex <they dance well> b : 1HE 2 -- often used with an indefinite third person singular antecedent <everyone knew where they stood -- E. L. Doctorow> <nobody has to go to school if they don't want to -- N. Y. Times>
2 : PEOPLE 2 -- used in a generic sense <as lazy as they come> usage They used as an indefinite subject (sense 2) is sometimes objected to on the grounds that it does not have an antecedent. Not every pronoun requires an antecedent, however. The indefinite they is used in all varieties of contexts and is standard. |
” |
“ | 1. Used to refer to the ones previously mentioned or implied. 2. Usage Problem Used to refer to the one previously mentioned or implied, especially as a substitute for generic he: Every person has rights under the law, but they don't always know them. See Usage Note at he1. 3a. Used to refer to people in general. b. Used to refer to people in general as seen in a position of authority. | ” |
Conclusions. 1. please let me know if you understand things better than the references. 2. please let me know if you think I've misunderstood the references. 3. please let me know if you think the sources fail to describe the topic of this article -- generic they (rather unfortunately called singular).
Recommendation. This article needs clear reference to the decisive issues in the grammars old and new alike -- the concepts distributive, referent (exophor), antecedent (cataphor), generic, distinction regarding people, etc. Before addressing any issues of style, there are plenty of uncontested facts.
PS: Never forget the Stern example: "Every nation have their refinements." Singular? Plural? Generic? Would you recommend it to your students? This is a fascinating subject.
Alastair Haines 23:45, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
It occurs to me that, singular (generic) they may actually have a plural of its own, which is also they, though the distinction would probably be purely psychological, not syntactic. This would argue in favour of the usefulness of term "singular they" in some ways, and against it in others.
I'll keep looking for sources, looking forward to your comments. Cheers. Alastair Haines 02:12, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
If anyone is interested, I've started a draft article covering this topic in a more logical and thorough fashion. I'm aiming to set forward systematically the relevant results of linguistic scholarship from several disciplines, including cognitive science, who are fascinated by the way distribution is handled across cultures and at all ages. One reason this research is NPOV is that it is conducted by women and men from various language backgrounds, who have no stake in the English gender-neutral pronoun questions. In fact, many of the articles are studies of languages other than English. Some of them are about computer languages! But the issues are common to all. The link of the draft, which will probably take some time to complete is at User:Alastair Haines/Singular they, please feel free to use the talk page. Cheers. Alastair Haines 07:21, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
Alastair Haines 03:39, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
The link of the draft, which will probably take some time to complete is at User:Alastair Haines/Singular they, please feel free to use the talk page. I have taken up the invitation. To cut a long story short, I didn't get any further in that than I did in Generic antecedents. -- Hoary 16:10, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
We have:
How is this different from "A man said he needed to use my phone"? In either case the pronoun can be as easily referring to a third party as to the man. Indeed, if "he" is reserved for identified persons of identified gender, then the third party is the only possible referent, and the "they" form the correct form for the intended interpretation. Perhaps this could be re-worded? – EdC 21:22, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
“ | ... genericity ("supposing a man were to say..."), anonymity ("one of your brothers said...") or epicenity ("the gardener said...") and they becomes allowed ... | ” |
The following, from the lead para, totally misses the point, also misses the point of WP:NPOV, and, being superfluous, should be removed — Until the late twentieth century, generic use of the pronoun he was preferred (but not required) in such constructions. At that time an effort was made to change the language. The proposal is endorsed or rejected on various grounds.—
was preferred? By who(m)? An effort was made?? By whom?? There is no need to add cite fact,or weasel word or neutrality tags here — the section fails them all. These three sentences (thirty-nine words) do not add to the article, Newbyguesses - Talk 09:46, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
WP is not a dictionary, in particular it is not the AHD, and WP does not push POV — Newbyguesses - Talk 00:40, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Regarding your quote, I like it and would love to see it in the article. Please assume I'm describing it scientifically, not making a personal judgement of value, when I say that it is an excellent example of the feminist POV (shared by many who are not feminist). How do I know that it is feminist POV? Because it assumes generic use of he is sexist. This is not the view of the majority of people or scholars in history, or across languages. However, it is a very large and influential POV, that most certainly must be articulated clearly at Wiki and in this article. I've a very large number of sources that attribute the rise of singular uses of they to official proscriptions (we're talking about governments and schools here) of what is deemed by them to be "sexist" language. If a journalist wanted used generic he, for example, she would be corrected, if she insisted, she may well cease to have a job. It is a moral issue in the minds of probably the majority of contemporary English speakers -- hence they are prescriptive about it, and they should be!
Another reason I like your quote is because I think Pam shows academic precision in calling the usage of they she is describing "generic/universal", which I completely agree with (see generic antecedents). One difficulty we have in this article is that it is named as though the issue is singular v plural, which is very narrow and does not define the range of uses, nor the real issue. Which you noted above, and I completely agree with you.
However, back to the quote, I'm not sure what "purists" Pam is refering to, they do not include me, nor the Oxford English Dictionary, nor the history of English writers, nor speakers of other languages which have distributive pronouns and distinctions between singular and plural pronouns. (I can provide examples from Greek and Hebrew, but they are far from the only languages with the same issues). The point is very important to this article, it is made by several scholars who are already quoted in the text. The point is that most general/universal references are used with both singular and plural pronouns.
I specifically agree with Pam that: "Many others would say that generic/universal their provides us with a gender-free pronoun." Not only do I agree that many would say this, I am one of those many. The same is true of clumsy "his/her" -- many think it is clumsy. The clumsiness of he/she is not a simple descriptive/prescriptive issue -- many people use it, sometimes it is not clumsy, people would differ in their "feel" for which cases are clumsy and which not.
Pam believes, has every right to do so, is backed by the majority and by legislation in saying use of he rather than he/she or they is sexist. On the other hand, I am far from alone in disagreeing with her here, but that is not my main point. There are two distinct issues -- the politics of sexism and the structure of language. Regarding language, Pam is actually technically wrong to speak of he as an "exclusive" pronoun. As it turns out, in English (and many similar languages), the feminine pronoun is more exclusive. In many languages masculine pronouns do "double-duty" as a common or epicene pronoun -- generic use. If one hears the feminine pronoun, it will almost always refer to women. If one hears a masculine pronoun, it depends on context whether it means everyone, or just men.
Pam is too good a scholar, I'm sure, to actually mean that he is necessarily exclusive, she knows singular pronouns can be used generically, even in non-sexist writing (for example alternating generic she and he between chapters etc.). A better reading of her words would be that she is refering to uses of he that are intended exclusively. However, it is not clear how that is possible in the example she has described -- everyone has to consider his future has been perfectly good English for centuries, is generic use and so includes women, is sexist only in the mind of a reader who chooses to show insensitivity to the context.
Now please note what I am not saying. I am not saying people cannot use they in such sentences -- they do! Whether I like it or not. However, I (and many others) use he in such sentences, whether they like it or not. I am not saying that sexism doesn't exist or should be encouraged. In fact I believe it does exist, is wrong and should be corrected. However, what I am saying is that there is more than one POV regarding use of he or they and that in an encyclopedic article both should be explained from the NPOV. This should be done, even if the article finishes by saying, "the policy at Wiki is to use they unless the issue can be avoided by rephrasing the sentence." Wiki doesn't have such a policy, but it would be perfectly encyclopedic for them to include it in style guide-lines.
Anyway, I've written a lot. I hope you can see that although I have preferences for personal use, I've read quite a bit on the issue and understand the other perspective. Please also note, I did not write this article, I have simply worked with what was already there. I found the article to be largely unsourced and POV because it assumed singular they is a clearly articulated, neutral form of language use, which is not what the evidence suggests. Someone tried to address it, unfortunately with true, but slightly unclear and unsourced material.
If the quote you provide is anything to go by. I look forward to your contributions, because they are clear, relevant and sourced. Alastair Haines 02:49, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
He does have some use as an epicene pronoun, but it's limited. Consider, for example, "Either her father or her uncle had his hair cut yesterday" — perfectly fine. Now consider "Either her father or her mother had his hair cut yesterday" — perfectly unintelligible. Epicene he is impossible when you explicitly list the options and they're not all male, suggesting that the only reason epicene he is possible when you don't list out the options is that it actually only refers to the male options, and we infer that the statement is supposed to be true of the female options as well. — Ruakh TALK 04:01, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
“ | Equally, some who claim to be language purists would seek to "prescribe" against the use of they, them, their, in certain cases, on the grounds of a supposed grammatical rule requiring "they", to be considered as always "plural". [1] | ” |
Could you please give me her words, I don't own this book. Let me explain what I object to. I hope you'll understand.
But leaving that aside, there is truth in what is being said here, the debate is between an ideologically motivated attempt to change usage, and a logic and clarity based case to retain it. For Wiki to be neutral, we need to put a clear, positive case for the gender equity case; but we also need to put a clear, positive case for logic and clarity.
Let me give an example of a similar case where we'd probably agree. There are women who are biologically XY and have testes instead of ovaries. Medical scientists used to call them "male psuedohermaphrodites". Technically speaking it is a clear and precise way of describing the biology of what is going on. However, the plain fact of the matter is these women (and their husbands) have no doubt that they are women and usually find out what is going on when they want to know why they can't have children. Telling them it's because they are "male" is just crazy. Nowadays there are a number of ways of describing this situation, none of them are ideal, but AIS (androgen insensitivity syndrome) is pretty usual.
Now, suppose I said, "Hang on! I'm an expert medical terminologist and male psuedo etc etc is just more logical, let's keep our language pure." If I took that line, I'd be an insensitive purist.
My point here is that because I'm not pursuaded that generic he actually suggests anything sexist at all, I'm completely unmoved by the rationale for change in language. Instead, what I am not alone in seeing, is a lot of language use that is more concerned with signaling gender neutrality than in being clear and specific. As a teacher at an all boys school, I heard other staff using gender neutral forms to refer to the young men quite regularly. A lot of people didn't feel comfortable using generic forms that can indicate masculinity, even when all the possible referents in context were in fact male.
I've made my request above. I'm keen to hear Pam's actual words. However, my main point is not fussing over details and it is certainly not a matter of making a case for people to "get with the program" and use generic he. My point is simply that in this article we need to be clear about what the debate is, and how to report it neutrally.
To suggest that one side of the debate is modern, enlightened, majority opinion and the other is old-fashioned, narrow-minded minority purists does not describe the arguments, it describes the people. Actually its debateable whether these things are true, but even if they are the right stereotypes, it's actually irrelevant to the actual argument which is quite straight forward.
It's rude to use demeaning language for minorities, however accurate, traditional or logical the terms. Legislate against them by all means. The question is, "Does generic he exclude women?" The answer is "no" and "yes". The other question is, "Does "singular" they cause ambiguity and loss of clear expression?" The answer there is "yes" and "no". Both sides have good arguments. Casting one side as "self opinionated pig-headed purists" and the other as "feminazi lesbians" does not help elucidate the totally rational and community sensitive opinions of the intelligent views of both sides.
Can you see my point about "purist"? That'd be a great start. ;)
Thanks, Alastair – "Does generic he exclude women?" The answer is "no" and "yes". Agreed, and even more so to your following points!
Hey thanks! She clearly states the usual argument ... not a put down, in fact, not only is she representative (so well picked by you) of many, she makes the claim with admirable caution -- "for many people" ... "suggests" ... "seems" ... "losing" (i.e. not yet lost). Just heard the word "manpower" used by a policeman in The Bill on telly tonight, even though the word is on the "black-list" of "gendered" language. ;)
Good point you make and I agree. Peters doesn't describe herself as a feminist, so we shouldn't assume it. The linguistic issues we are addressing stand on their own without reference to either feminism or purism in the person who argues a case. The rest of the article talks about "those who support" and "those who don't", which is clumsy, but neutral. Perhaps we can find better words. I ain't no purist, really I ain't. See, non-purists can argue for freedom to use generic he, without proscribing alternatives, and without appealing to over-simplifications like singular/plural. But it's hard to find reasons other than gender justice for singular they.
I agree Baskerville/Sewell are a good example of a non-prescriptive and non-purist grammar from 100 years ago. For example they do not consider "everyone had their own opinion" to be absolutely wrong, and do not deal with the issue merely on the basis of a singular/plural distinction. They are not famous nor brilliant, but they are old and online, easy for people to look at w/out leaving home. To be fair, most advocates of singular they do not accuse the academics, rather they accuse primary school teachers. Fowler, on the other hand, is a very famous and respected style guide author. Grammars have always been descriptive, style guides have always been prescriptive (and so are primary school teachers). I guess there'd be exceptions, but the nineteenth century was full of descriptive grammars of dead languages, no point in being prescriptive there! ;)
Just remember, to say 19th C academics were prescriptive purists, doesn't prove that modern speakers prefer singular they or are best off using singular they. It might not even be true that 19th C scholars were what some claim they were, but who cares! The argument for using singular they is that people can perceive the main alternative, generic he to be exclusive. The argument for using generic he is that most people have an IQ sufficient to understand the structure, it is unavoidable in many inflected languages, without apparantly provoking any battles of the sexes, so why not educate those who don't understand, rather than try to get everyone to conform to a new usage. And there are answers to that question, but they are not decisive, so we are left with two sets of opinions. That's fine with me. Alastair Haines 12:43, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Was just about to post the following (definitely agreed, all!) –
Slowly, work on the article, moving it away from the "all-in wrestling" metaphor. And, my first suggestion is, that, the chapter titles are uninformative. Usage isnt usage, and History isnt history. Some material has to be moved, or it risks deletion by being redundant. Group the material differently, grip the salient points, and the chapter titles ought to be obvious. I will be working on it, and watching this talk:page, Newbyguesses - Talk 13:22, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
I completely agree, the sections do not reflect their contents. The article needs a deliberate logical framework. Here is a workspace with the basic headings: Talk:Singular they/Draft. Alastair Haines 02:16, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Here is the code/text for an amazing table of greek pronouns or something. Cant really go in this article, but surely somewhere?
Ούτως | και | ο | πατήρ | μου | ο | ουράνιος | ποιησει | υμιν, | εαν | μη | αφητε | εκαστος | τω | αδελφω | αυτου | απο | των | καρδιων | υμων | τα | παραπτωματα | αυτων. |
Thus | too | the | father | my | the | heavenly | will do | to you, | if | not | you all forgive | each one | the | brother | his | from | the | hearts | your | the | trespasses | their. |
Newbyguesses - Talk 14:24, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I am returning this to the text. It is significant to the argument. Someone provided the Bible quote as an example of singular they from an ureliable source called Language Log. The Greek is there to show that Language Log, despite its name, makes linguistic errors when it fails to research topics it addresses. It is an excellent, clear example of how English interacts with other languages. If you find the argument unclear, I will expand it for you. Alastair Haines 01:34, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Please do not remove references from the article, and leave the author's name in citations in the text. These things are important because they are the verification trail of the article. It allows people to find books in libraries or search for online references. I know it may seem cumbersome to have details like authors names, when there are so many other things to say, but actually the authors, as well as titles are very much part of the information articles provide. Readers are not actually interested in your opinion, or mine, they are interested in facts, and where they can check those facts. Additionally, a golden rule of Wiki is that material that is not supported by a source can be removed at any time. However, material that accurately reflects a reliable source needs to be retained. Alastair Haines 01:34, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
“ |
|
” |
Thanks, that's helpful. Of course, the Oxford English Dictionary and Baskerville and Sewell said the last bit 100 years ago. The debate is not about whether the form exists in English, but whether it is preferable. Pam likes it, Baskerville and Sewell don't. OED doesn't take sides, and nor does Wiki.
I'm looking forward to you presenting the case against singular they as clearly as you present the case for. Cheers. Alastair Haines 09:55, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
“ | Equally, some who claim to be language purists would seek to "prescribe" against the use of they, them, their, in certain cases, on the grounds of a supposed grammatical rule requiring "they", to be considered as always "plural". [2] | ” |
Simple challenge here. Please quote me Peters actual use of the words "purist" and "prescribe", and where she says the issue is "plurality". Those things, as far as I'm aware, are urban myths, not academic assessments. Pam is too good an academic from what you've quoted, for her to buy into such things. We cannot use her name to back ideas she has not actually articulated.
Why not just put her words you quoted on the talk page into the article? That would be excellent information for the article. Alastair Haines 02:04, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Just state the facts. Who said what, where and when. Actually, the following is technically NPOV reporting of a particular POV:
It's not our job to tell people which sources to trust. It's our job to tell people what the sources are, and where to find them. I'm sure you understand the point. Alastair Haines 04:33, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Alalstair, you said all this quite recently: Be careful about your descriptions of writers: Pam believes, has every right to do so, is backed by the majority and by , Pam is actually technically wrong to speak of Pam is too good a scholar, I'm sure, to Pam is too good an academic from what you've quoted, for her to she's trying to be a purist and present a purist case, Does it seem that you are conducting a personal debate, with this source, of a few sentences, and putting words into your "opponent's mouth" into the bargain? Be careful about your descriptions of writers, the way it is going is not my understanding of NPOV, more like a boxing match, Newbyguesses - Talk 07:20, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Good points - there are currently 28 footnote/refs, and several References, and Further reading. Each footnote supports a useful entry, and they consist in reliable, relevant sources. Baskervill&Sewell- An English Grammar is well used, AHD, Cambridge English Usage and Epicene ProNouns(Newman) also. User:Alastair Haines, who has contributed extensively, but did not originate the article, has a broad knowledge of the topic and extensively of these and considerable other relevant reference material. User:Newbyguesses, also a contributor, has also investigated these references, and those as can be got to online, such as Warenda. Naturally, the topic is suitable for a treatment utilizing the best of the plentiful available sources and references. This possibility is advantageous to seeking to raise the article at some point, when stability, quality and the efforts of editors concord, to good article status. The current useful, though by no means polished article is a credit to the originator, the further contributors, and particularly User:Alastair Haines for considerable contributions and maintenence to "Singular they" — Newbyguesses - Talk 02:40, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
Let me preface this by saying that English grammar is extremely convoluted. I'm not quite sure who the authority is on what is proper and what isn't, or if there should even be an authority on this matter at all. However, based on my teachings, including my completion of an English minor, I don't understand how the following example sentence used in this article reflects proper grammar:
Allow me to reword this sentence:
This rewording shows that the verb usage does not agree with the subject of the sentence. It seems to me that English grammar mandates that the example sentence read "The person you mentioned, is he/she coming?" such that, when the sentence is broken down to investigate the grammar usage, you can see that when reworded, the sentence reads "Is the person you mentioned coming?" which makes sense grammatically. If you're worried about gender specificity, the sentence may read "he/she," "he or she," "he" or "she." Personally, it doesn't bother me one bit as a male for someone to use "she" when speaking about a singular subject with an unknown gender. However, using "they" in this case -- as well as in many other cases -- creates a subject/verb conflict that is grammatically incorrect.
I understand that forms of "singular they" may have been used many times over in the past, but just because something has been done in the past -- no matter how often -- does not make it correct. I simply cannot get over this obvious subject/verb conflict.
As for how this discussion might contribute to the article, perhaps we ought to edit the section entitled "The case against." Rather than simply inserting quote after quote of example usage, we might consider explaining some logical arguments against "singular they," like this subject/verb conflict. As I mentioned previously, just because people used a certain kind of grammar in the past doesn't mean that it makes sense or is proper. Thus, listing quotes where singular they is not used doesn't really make a "case against" singular they.
BareAss 16:31, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
There is another example and supporting text that I think has errors. I am not great with grammar so forgive me if this is wrong:
Caesar: "No, Cleopatra. No man goes to battle to be killed."
Cleopatra: "But they do get killed".
— George Bernard Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra, 1901
Few people today would easily use he where Shaw used they....Semantically, however, they refers to the men who are killed, just as Austen's singular everybody refers to the people who get married.
"they" cannot refer to "the men who are killed." That usage is comic:
Caesar: "No man goes to battle to be painted blue."
Cleo: "But they (blue men) are all blue!"
I suggest "they" refers to "the men who go to battle". :)
The problem with this example is it's purpose (as per "Few people today..."), does not match the example. "But they do get killed." properly is plural (if ungrammatical) -- it is the group of men referred to by the singular "no man (of the group of men who goes to battle)". If that isn't severely incorrect, this is not a use of singular they. Robbiemuffin 17:32, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Much could be added to this article; equally, the running order could be improved: it is quite possible that this article could feature on the Good Article list, one day. Newbyguesses - Talk 15:57, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, their in the above examples is possessive case, is considered of plural number, third person and unmarked gender. According to E'day Oxfrd(81) p23 agree v. 7. to correspond in grammatical case, number, gender or person.(reff 8). Off to the state library to see what OEDii(89) has got. Newbyguesses - Talk 22:47, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Sorry Newbyguesses, but the article still doesn't have an argument against singular they. Removing section headings "for" and "against" does disguise the fact. I really don't think this article will be free of claims of bias unless both positions are labelled by heading and argued as strongly as possible by sources that represent them.
How would you describe the argument against singular they. What would you say are the best sources to find such an argument? Alastair Haines 08:09, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
A little more searching and I found:
It would appear that jede and oder prefer singular relatives in distributive constructions, unless gender marking makes this sound silly to a native German speaker.
In the second case, plural inflections seem to be used. I'm not sure how much lee-way German has in this. I suspect calling such relatives singular die would seem rather odd. Rather, the plural appears to be used to escape discordant gender distinctions, and seems natural enough because distribution can be conceived almost equally well as singular or plural. I'd appreciate a German native speaker helping us to understand what you do, bitte? Alastair Haines 14:53, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
David Kellogg Lewis, my favourite genius, considering 'Adverbs of Quantification' in Formal Semantics of Natural Language (1975) suggested some elements of natural language demonstrate a "quantification variability effect". This is pretty standard stuff now, cited as "the well-known QVE (Lewis:1975)".
For others with a mind to the academic stuff. Some liguists split quantifiers into two categories — D and A — standing for determiner-quantifiers and adverbial-quantifiers.
Others have done work on distributive constructions. Some languages have distributive particles or clitics. There are different types of distribution — distributive-key and distributive-share, as against non-distributive and unmarked varieties.
It would appear that distributive and epicene they are not new, not unique to English, and considered accademically quite independently of political or prescriptive issues. However, the one word that is not used in the serious literature to classify these uses of they (or analogs in other languages) is singular. Alastair Haines 16:00, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, these passages from "External Links" seem to suggest by "bound pronouns" or such what singular they is meant to convey.
frm transcript, on radio, Anyone who had a Heart... 04/05/2002
Geoff Pullum, (with Rodney Huddleston , Cambridge Grammar of the English Language), offers a descriptive analysis of how English grammar actually works.
transcript, Geoff Pullam:>In the other use, pronouns don’t really refer to anyone; they have antecedents like ‘everyone’ or ‘nobody’ or ‘all’ or ‘none’ or ‘who’ or ‘somebody’ or ‘anyone’, which don’t themselves refer. Take an example like:
The pronoun ‘they’ can’t be referring to anyone here, because the whole point of what the sentence says is that there weren’t any writers who said they enjoyed writing, so there’s no one to refer to. I won’t get all technical here about how pronouns of this sort work like bound variables in logic, but I will borrow the term from logic: I’ll call pronouns of this kind bound pronouns.
The relevance of the distinction is this: in English, the pronoun ‘they’ is fairly strictly limited to having a plural-inflected antecedent when it is used as a referring pronoun, but there is no such restriction when it’s a bound pronoun.
In The Cambridge Grammar we lay out the general ...<
frm...Steven Pinker The Language Instinct (1994) Chapter 12: The Language Mavens Sometimes an alleged grammatical "error" is logical not only in the sense of "rational" but in the sense of respecting distinctions made by the formal logician. Consider this alleged barbarism, brought up by nearly every language maven;
... is that everyone and they are not an "antecedent" and a "pronoun" referring to the same person in the world, which would force them to agree in number. They are a "quantifier" and a "bound variable," a different logical relationship. Everyone returned to their seats means "For all X, X returned to X's seat." The "X" does not refer to any particular person or group of people; it is simply a placeholder that keeps track of the roles that players play across different relationships. In this case, the X that comes back to a seat is the same X that owns the seat that X comes back to.
The 'their' there does not, in fact, have plural number, because it refers neither to one thing nor to many things; it does not refer at all. The same goes for the hypothetical caller: there may be one, there may be none, or the phone might ring off the hook with would-be suitors; all that matters is that every time there is a caller, if there is a caller, that caller, and not someone else, should be put off.
On logical grounds, then, variables are not the same thing as the more familiar "referential" pronouns that trigger number agreement (he meaning some particular guy, they meaning some particular bunch of guys). Some languages are considerate and offer their speakers different words for referential pronouns and for variables. But English is stingy: a referential pronoun must be drafted into service to lend its name when a speaker needs to use a variable.
Since these are not real referential pronouns but only homonyms of them, there is no reason that the vernacular decision to borrow they, their, them for the task is any worse than the prescriptivists' recommendation of he, him, his. Indeed, they has the advantage of embracing both sexes and feeling right in a wider variety of sentences.<
So, does singular they refer, then, to situations which can be described as involving "bound pronouns" (or, bound variables)? – Newbyguesses - Talk 08:52, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
I have a suggestion, and Alastair, as an experienced editor, would like your opinion. Looking at Wikipedia:Embedded list#"References" and "External links", would it be suitable for this article to combine both, and we have a (Foot)-Notes section also. WWW sources referenced in this article to date are of the highly reliable and well-respected type; so, footnotable. Those accesed by myself, all still "Live links", would appear to have equivalent verifiabilty as library material has. Now, your thoughts? Cheers, U: Newbyguesses - Talk 13:07, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Notes (for the footnotes) Material referenced (strictly for references) Further reading - Bibliography - (if needed) Literary Quotes - Compendium --
An apt quotation is like a lamp which flings its light over the whole sentence. - Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Romance and Reality
Try to bridge each sentence with the sentence before it by using an idea or word that appears in both sentences. Use consistent vocabulary in parts that are technical and difficult. To decide which parts of the sentence are going to be difficult for the reader, try to anticipate the reader's resistance to the ideas.
I shall never be ashamed to quote a bad author if what he says is good.
— Seneca the Younger, On Tranquility of Mind
“ | In a pinch, any orphan quote can be called a(n old) Chinese proverb. | ” |
— Ralph Keyes, Nice Guys Finish Seventh: False Phrases, Spurious Sayings, and Familiar Misquotations (1992)
|
There are a number of such Quotation Templates found at [[Category:Quotation templates]], the setting out of the article is affected by such choices. These are deep waters for me, relying on gut-instinct on matters of "style" , trying to upgrade my skill-sets, still I reckon there have been improvements to this article, Alastair, since we started working together. Cheers Newbyguesses - Talk 22:53, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Description of German usage. 2002: "Pronouns and determiners referring back to jemand [someone] and niemand [no one] have the masculine singular form: Niemand, der es weiß [no one who (masc.) knows it]; Jemand hat seine Tasche vergessen [someone has forgotten his bag]." [3]
2007: "After the hard times of the 20th century, the average citizen is willing to tolerate unfairness as long as his living standard improves." [4]
This sentence is backed by a footnote to Huddleston and Pullum. I'm sure they can't say it, 'cause it almost contradicts itself.
"The third of these example sentences, in which their refers back to singular student, is acceptable, especially in speech, for many users of English, but some prescriptive grammars have objections to it."
To say that a usage is "acceptable" is to be prescriptive. How can the grammars that prescribe singular they have objection to what they prescribe? Is the following what is intended:
"The third of these example sentences, ..., is acceptable, ..., it is prescribed as acceptable by Huddleston and Pullum."
Or was something else intended?
Also, linguists are allowed to be prescriptive, be we can't be. We can only say: "X is used (example)"; "Y says, 'Z is acceptable/unacceptable for reasons A, B, C.' " Alastair Haines 14:28, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry to notice this question so late. The kernel seems to be My point is that "acceptable" includes a value judgement, hence it is prescriptive.
Not at all. H&P are using the word "acceptable" in its regular linguistics sense. This is explained in many introductory linguistics texts. Or you could look up "Acceptability" in Crystal's Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics; the entry in its third edition (old, but the only one I have on me) is far too long for me to think of regurgitating it here (quite aside from copyright considerations), but I'll quote the first sentence: The extent to which linguistic DATA would be judged by NATIVE-SPEAKERS to be possible in their language. (Capitalization is used for cross referencing.) Note that there's nothing here about the extent to which respondents would like TV announcers, their children, or others to speak in this way. A test item might include James asked Mary to cook for himself; I think that any native speaker would call this unacceptable (in the linguistics sense) and the linguist would then describe it as unacceptable; neither the test respondent nor the linguist would think of "prescribing" the simple accusative him in this example.
Acceptability sounds like grammaticality, and the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably. However, within the Chomskyan tradition there's a distinction between the two, going back at least as far as Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965). Where (or as far as) the two are distinguished, acceptability does not have connotations of propriety, elegance, etc.; it's tangential to the realm of the prescriptivists. -- Hoary 04:39, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
...Comment added at 05:40, 21 July 2007 by Alastair Haines
I don't think I was begging any question. I was instead responding in a way that I hoped would be helpful to a question about the word "acceptable". Still, since you do bring up a number of points:
Incidentally, I'm puzzled by your use of "save" in edit summaries; this seems utterly uninformative to me. -- Hoary 06:07, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
The following is an English translation of an Italian journal article. It concerns interpretation of the Song of Songs. Emphasis is added.
“ | LINGUAGGIO EROTICO IN CANTICO E PROVERBI
(V. Cottini) A language of love & even of eros, is used to express the relationship between wisdom and men. This is a characteristic of Israel's sages, also found in Ben Sira and in the Wisdom of Solomon. An inquiry is conducted into some love terms, such as dod, ahavah, achot, matsa - baqash, etc., both in the Song of Songs and in the Book of Proverbs. It reveals a close relationship between the wisdom books mentioned. It also shows how strong a force is love in human experience. Dame Wisdom present in creation reveals herself as the lover of men and their spouse. The biblical sages perceived that love and wisdom are two related realities, both divine and human, linking God, man and the world together. |
” |
The use of their in the second sentence is hard to call "singular" their, but the point of the example is that the sentences in bold are well formed English sentences, that depend for their coherence on use of generic masculine. The writer does intend that women can be wise and embrace wisdom, they are included by using generic men. However, the writer is equivocating on this word, as he intends it also as specifically masculine -- wisdom as spouse in the second sentence.
John Lennon also points out the gender inclusive nature of the word man in his famous song Imagine -- "a brotherhood and sisterhood of man". Clearly, he did not intend to say that men are sisters to other men, rather that humanity embraces both men and women. Of course, others would take offence at Lennon, and consider him sexist, rather a pity really. I can't work out which is a sadder alternative phrase: siblinghood of persons, which is neutral to the point of losing all heart; or cameraderie of humanity, which loses the concept of family solidarity.
I have some soures that make points like these, the place for most of them is at Gender neutral language though. Just came across the first quote above while I was researching something else today, so thought I'd drop it in here for comment. Cheers. Alastair Haines 19:12, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
“ | Two main syntactical patterns are identified: one, where hayah [Hebrew to be/become] is a 'full verb', with complete predication; the other, where it is a verb of 'incomplete predication' with a predicative complement referring to the subject. In the forms of v'yehi and v'hayah it introduces a circumstance ('protasis') preceding the main sentence ('apodosis'). Protasis and apodosis are its 'subject' and the whole complex is verbal. In this case, hayah plays a 'macrosyntactical function', i.e., it connects the circumstance to the main line of communication. In all its functions hayah is a normal verb, not a 'copula'. It agrees with the subject as other verbs do and is not a 'fossilized auxiliary'. A sentence with a finite form of hayah is not nominal but verbal. The presence of hayah is needed to express past and future information. For present information, no form of hayah appears since this verb is not used in the participle. | ” |
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
I've put a bit of work into redoing some of the obviously biased information in the page that makes the page a violation of WP:NPOV. I have not removed the NPOV tag because I am not sure if everyone is in agreement about the page's neutrality. ( Justyn 18:35, 17 April 2007 (UTC))
Alastair Haines: Please provide some evidence for your claim that "singular they" does not mean "the use of they/them/c. with a grammatically singular antecedent." I think it's great that you want to explain which uses of singular they are traditional and which are relatively new; but it's simply not acceptable for you to redefine the term "singular they" to push a specific agenda, and it really looks like that's what you're trying to do here.
— Ruakh TALK 19:13, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
“ | 1 a : those ones -- used as third person pronoun serving as the plural of he, she, or it or referring to a group of two or more individuals not all of the same sex <they dance well> b : 1HE 2 -- often used with an indefinite third person singular antecedent <everyone knew where they stood -- E. L. Doctorow> <nobody has to go to school if they don't want to -- N. Y. Times>
2 : PEOPLE 2 -- used in a generic sense <as lazy as they come> usage They used as an indefinite subject (sense 2) is sometimes objected to on the grounds that it does not have an antecedent. Not every pronoun requires an antecedent, however. The indefinite they is used in all varieties of contexts and is standard. |
” |
“ | 1. Used to refer to the ones previously mentioned or implied. 2. Usage Problem Used to refer to the one previously mentioned or implied, especially as a substitute for generic he: Every person has rights under the law, but they don't always know them. See Usage Note at he1. 3a. Used to refer to people in general. b. Used to refer to people in general as seen in a position of authority. | ” |
Conclusions. 1. please let me know if you understand things better than the references. 2. please let me know if you think I've misunderstood the references. 3. please let me know if you think the sources fail to describe the topic of this article -- generic they (rather unfortunately called singular).
Recommendation. This article needs clear reference to the decisive issues in the grammars old and new alike -- the concepts distributive, referent (exophor), antecedent (cataphor), generic, distinction regarding people, etc. Before addressing any issues of style, there are plenty of uncontested facts.
PS: Never forget the Stern example: "Every nation have their refinements." Singular? Plural? Generic? Would you recommend it to your students? This is a fascinating subject.
Alastair Haines 23:45, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
It occurs to me that, singular (generic) they may actually have a plural of its own, which is also they, though the distinction would probably be purely psychological, not syntactic. This would argue in favour of the usefulness of term "singular they" in some ways, and against it in others.
I'll keep looking for sources, looking forward to your comments. Cheers. Alastair Haines 02:12, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
If anyone is interested, I've started a draft article covering this topic in a more logical and thorough fashion. I'm aiming to set forward systematically the relevant results of linguistic scholarship from several disciplines, including cognitive science, who are fascinated by the way distribution is handled across cultures and at all ages. One reason this research is NPOV is that it is conducted by women and men from various language backgrounds, who have no stake in the English gender-neutral pronoun questions. In fact, many of the articles are studies of languages other than English. Some of them are about computer languages! But the issues are common to all. The link of the draft, which will probably take some time to complete is at User:Alastair Haines/Singular they, please feel free to use the talk page. Cheers. Alastair Haines 07:21, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
Alastair Haines 03:39, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
The link of the draft, which will probably take some time to complete is at User:Alastair Haines/Singular they, please feel free to use the talk page. I have taken up the invitation. To cut a long story short, I didn't get any further in that than I did in Generic antecedents. -- Hoary 16:10, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
We have:
How is this different from "A man said he needed to use my phone"? In either case the pronoun can be as easily referring to a third party as to the man. Indeed, if "he" is reserved for identified persons of identified gender, then the third party is the only possible referent, and the "they" form the correct form for the intended interpretation. Perhaps this could be re-worded? – EdC 21:22, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
“ | ... genericity ("supposing a man were to say..."), anonymity ("one of your brothers said...") or epicenity ("the gardener said...") and they becomes allowed ... | ” |
The following, from the lead para, totally misses the point, also misses the point of WP:NPOV, and, being superfluous, should be removed — Until the late twentieth century, generic use of the pronoun he was preferred (but not required) in such constructions. At that time an effort was made to change the language. The proposal is endorsed or rejected on various grounds.—
was preferred? By who(m)? An effort was made?? By whom?? There is no need to add cite fact,or weasel word or neutrality tags here — the section fails them all. These three sentences (thirty-nine words) do not add to the article, Newbyguesses - Talk 09:46, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
WP is not a dictionary, in particular it is not the AHD, and WP does not push POV — Newbyguesses - Talk 00:40, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Regarding your quote, I like it and would love to see it in the article. Please assume I'm describing it scientifically, not making a personal judgement of value, when I say that it is an excellent example of the feminist POV (shared by many who are not feminist). How do I know that it is feminist POV? Because it assumes generic use of he is sexist. This is not the view of the majority of people or scholars in history, or across languages. However, it is a very large and influential POV, that most certainly must be articulated clearly at Wiki and in this article. I've a very large number of sources that attribute the rise of singular uses of they to official proscriptions (we're talking about governments and schools here) of what is deemed by them to be "sexist" language. If a journalist wanted used generic he, for example, she would be corrected, if she insisted, she may well cease to have a job. It is a moral issue in the minds of probably the majority of contemporary English speakers -- hence they are prescriptive about it, and they should be!
Another reason I like your quote is because I think Pam shows academic precision in calling the usage of they she is describing "generic/universal", which I completely agree with (see generic antecedents). One difficulty we have in this article is that it is named as though the issue is singular v plural, which is very narrow and does not define the range of uses, nor the real issue. Which you noted above, and I completely agree with you.
However, back to the quote, I'm not sure what "purists" Pam is refering to, they do not include me, nor the Oxford English Dictionary, nor the history of English writers, nor speakers of other languages which have distributive pronouns and distinctions between singular and plural pronouns. (I can provide examples from Greek and Hebrew, but they are far from the only languages with the same issues). The point is very important to this article, it is made by several scholars who are already quoted in the text. The point is that most general/universal references are used with both singular and plural pronouns.
I specifically agree with Pam that: "Many others would say that generic/universal their provides us with a gender-free pronoun." Not only do I agree that many would say this, I am one of those many. The same is true of clumsy "his/her" -- many think it is clumsy. The clumsiness of he/she is not a simple descriptive/prescriptive issue -- many people use it, sometimes it is not clumsy, people would differ in their "feel" for which cases are clumsy and which not.
Pam believes, has every right to do so, is backed by the majority and by legislation in saying use of he rather than he/she or they is sexist. On the other hand, I am far from alone in disagreeing with her here, but that is not my main point. There are two distinct issues -- the politics of sexism and the structure of language. Regarding language, Pam is actually technically wrong to speak of he as an "exclusive" pronoun. As it turns out, in English (and many similar languages), the feminine pronoun is more exclusive. In many languages masculine pronouns do "double-duty" as a common or epicene pronoun -- generic use. If one hears the feminine pronoun, it will almost always refer to women. If one hears a masculine pronoun, it depends on context whether it means everyone, or just men.
Pam is too good a scholar, I'm sure, to actually mean that he is necessarily exclusive, she knows singular pronouns can be used generically, even in non-sexist writing (for example alternating generic she and he between chapters etc.). A better reading of her words would be that she is refering to uses of he that are intended exclusively. However, it is not clear how that is possible in the example she has described -- everyone has to consider his future has been perfectly good English for centuries, is generic use and so includes women, is sexist only in the mind of a reader who chooses to show insensitivity to the context.
Now please note what I am not saying. I am not saying people cannot use they in such sentences -- they do! Whether I like it or not. However, I (and many others) use he in such sentences, whether they like it or not. I am not saying that sexism doesn't exist or should be encouraged. In fact I believe it does exist, is wrong and should be corrected. However, what I am saying is that there is more than one POV regarding use of he or they and that in an encyclopedic article both should be explained from the NPOV. This should be done, even if the article finishes by saying, "the policy at Wiki is to use they unless the issue can be avoided by rephrasing the sentence." Wiki doesn't have such a policy, but it would be perfectly encyclopedic for them to include it in style guide-lines.
Anyway, I've written a lot. I hope you can see that although I have preferences for personal use, I've read quite a bit on the issue and understand the other perspective. Please also note, I did not write this article, I have simply worked with what was already there. I found the article to be largely unsourced and POV because it assumed singular they is a clearly articulated, neutral form of language use, which is not what the evidence suggests. Someone tried to address it, unfortunately with true, but slightly unclear and unsourced material.
If the quote you provide is anything to go by. I look forward to your contributions, because they are clear, relevant and sourced. Alastair Haines 02:49, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
He does have some use as an epicene pronoun, but it's limited. Consider, for example, "Either her father or her uncle had his hair cut yesterday" — perfectly fine. Now consider "Either her father or her mother had his hair cut yesterday" — perfectly unintelligible. Epicene he is impossible when you explicitly list the options and they're not all male, suggesting that the only reason epicene he is possible when you don't list out the options is that it actually only refers to the male options, and we infer that the statement is supposed to be true of the female options as well. — Ruakh TALK 04:01, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
“ | Equally, some who claim to be language purists would seek to "prescribe" against the use of they, them, their, in certain cases, on the grounds of a supposed grammatical rule requiring "they", to be considered as always "plural". [1] | ” |
Could you please give me her words, I don't own this book. Let me explain what I object to. I hope you'll understand.
But leaving that aside, there is truth in what is being said here, the debate is between an ideologically motivated attempt to change usage, and a logic and clarity based case to retain it. For Wiki to be neutral, we need to put a clear, positive case for the gender equity case; but we also need to put a clear, positive case for logic and clarity.
Let me give an example of a similar case where we'd probably agree. There are women who are biologically XY and have testes instead of ovaries. Medical scientists used to call them "male psuedohermaphrodites". Technically speaking it is a clear and precise way of describing the biology of what is going on. However, the plain fact of the matter is these women (and their husbands) have no doubt that they are women and usually find out what is going on when they want to know why they can't have children. Telling them it's because they are "male" is just crazy. Nowadays there are a number of ways of describing this situation, none of them are ideal, but AIS (androgen insensitivity syndrome) is pretty usual.
Now, suppose I said, "Hang on! I'm an expert medical terminologist and male psuedo etc etc is just more logical, let's keep our language pure." If I took that line, I'd be an insensitive purist.
My point here is that because I'm not pursuaded that generic he actually suggests anything sexist at all, I'm completely unmoved by the rationale for change in language. Instead, what I am not alone in seeing, is a lot of language use that is more concerned with signaling gender neutrality than in being clear and specific. As a teacher at an all boys school, I heard other staff using gender neutral forms to refer to the young men quite regularly. A lot of people didn't feel comfortable using generic forms that can indicate masculinity, even when all the possible referents in context were in fact male.
I've made my request above. I'm keen to hear Pam's actual words. However, my main point is not fussing over details and it is certainly not a matter of making a case for people to "get with the program" and use generic he. My point is simply that in this article we need to be clear about what the debate is, and how to report it neutrally.
To suggest that one side of the debate is modern, enlightened, majority opinion and the other is old-fashioned, narrow-minded minority purists does not describe the arguments, it describes the people. Actually its debateable whether these things are true, but even if they are the right stereotypes, it's actually irrelevant to the actual argument which is quite straight forward.
It's rude to use demeaning language for minorities, however accurate, traditional or logical the terms. Legislate against them by all means. The question is, "Does generic he exclude women?" The answer is "no" and "yes". The other question is, "Does "singular" they cause ambiguity and loss of clear expression?" The answer there is "yes" and "no". Both sides have good arguments. Casting one side as "self opinionated pig-headed purists" and the other as "feminazi lesbians" does not help elucidate the totally rational and community sensitive opinions of the intelligent views of both sides.
Can you see my point about "purist"? That'd be a great start. ;)
Thanks, Alastair – "Does generic he exclude women?" The answer is "no" and "yes". Agreed, and even more so to your following points!
Hey thanks! She clearly states the usual argument ... not a put down, in fact, not only is she representative (so well picked by you) of many, she makes the claim with admirable caution -- "for many people" ... "suggests" ... "seems" ... "losing" (i.e. not yet lost). Just heard the word "manpower" used by a policeman in The Bill on telly tonight, even though the word is on the "black-list" of "gendered" language. ;)
Good point you make and I agree. Peters doesn't describe herself as a feminist, so we shouldn't assume it. The linguistic issues we are addressing stand on their own without reference to either feminism or purism in the person who argues a case. The rest of the article talks about "those who support" and "those who don't", which is clumsy, but neutral. Perhaps we can find better words. I ain't no purist, really I ain't. See, non-purists can argue for freedom to use generic he, without proscribing alternatives, and without appealing to over-simplifications like singular/plural. But it's hard to find reasons other than gender justice for singular they.
I agree Baskerville/Sewell are a good example of a non-prescriptive and non-purist grammar from 100 years ago. For example they do not consider "everyone had their own opinion" to be absolutely wrong, and do not deal with the issue merely on the basis of a singular/plural distinction. They are not famous nor brilliant, but they are old and online, easy for people to look at w/out leaving home. To be fair, most advocates of singular they do not accuse the academics, rather they accuse primary school teachers. Fowler, on the other hand, is a very famous and respected style guide author. Grammars have always been descriptive, style guides have always been prescriptive (and so are primary school teachers). I guess there'd be exceptions, but the nineteenth century was full of descriptive grammars of dead languages, no point in being prescriptive there! ;)
Just remember, to say 19th C academics were prescriptive purists, doesn't prove that modern speakers prefer singular they or are best off using singular they. It might not even be true that 19th C scholars were what some claim they were, but who cares! The argument for using singular they is that people can perceive the main alternative, generic he to be exclusive. The argument for using generic he is that most people have an IQ sufficient to understand the structure, it is unavoidable in many inflected languages, without apparantly provoking any battles of the sexes, so why not educate those who don't understand, rather than try to get everyone to conform to a new usage. And there are answers to that question, but they are not decisive, so we are left with two sets of opinions. That's fine with me. Alastair Haines 12:43, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Was just about to post the following (definitely agreed, all!) –
Slowly, work on the article, moving it away from the "all-in wrestling" metaphor. And, my first suggestion is, that, the chapter titles are uninformative. Usage isnt usage, and History isnt history. Some material has to be moved, or it risks deletion by being redundant. Group the material differently, grip the salient points, and the chapter titles ought to be obvious. I will be working on it, and watching this talk:page, Newbyguesses - Talk 13:22, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
I completely agree, the sections do not reflect their contents. The article needs a deliberate logical framework. Here is a workspace with the basic headings: Talk:Singular they/Draft. Alastair Haines 02:16, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Here is the code/text for an amazing table of greek pronouns or something. Cant really go in this article, but surely somewhere?
Ούτως | και | ο | πατήρ | μου | ο | ουράνιος | ποιησει | υμιν, | εαν | μη | αφητε | εκαστος | τω | αδελφω | αυτου | απο | των | καρδιων | υμων | τα | παραπτωματα | αυτων. |
Thus | too | the | father | my | the | heavenly | will do | to you, | if | not | you all forgive | each one | the | brother | his | from | the | hearts | your | the | trespasses | their. |
Newbyguesses - Talk 14:24, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I am returning this to the text. It is significant to the argument. Someone provided the Bible quote as an example of singular they from an ureliable source called Language Log. The Greek is there to show that Language Log, despite its name, makes linguistic errors when it fails to research topics it addresses. It is an excellent, clear example of how English interacts with other languages. If you find the argument unclear, I will expand it for you. Alastair Haines 01:34, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Please do not remove references from the article, and leave the author's name in citations in the text. These things are important because they are the verification trail of the article. It allows people to find books in libraries or search for online references. I know it may seem cumbersome to have details like authors names, when there are so many other things to say, but actually the authors, as well as titles are very much part of the information articles provide. Readers are not actually interested in your opinion, or mine, they are interested in facts, and where they can check those facts. Additionally, a golden rule of Wiki is that material that is not supported by a source can be removed at any time. However, material that accurately reflects a reliable source needs to be retained. Alastair Haines 01:34, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
“ |
|
” |
Thanks, that's helpful. Of course, the Oxford English Dictionary and Baskerville and Sewell said the last bit 100 years ago. The debate is not about whether the form exists in English, but whether it is preferable. Pam likes it, Baskerville and Sewell don't. OED doesn't take sides, and nor does Wiki.
I'm looking forward to you presenting the case against singular they as clearly as you present the case for. Cheers. Alastair Haines 09:55, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
“ | Equally, some who claim to be language purists would seek to "prescribe" against the use of they, them, their, in certain cases, on the grounds of a supposed grammatical rule requiring "they", to be considered as always "plural". [2] | ” |
Simple challenge here. Please quote me Peters actual use of the words "purist" and "prescribe", and where she says the issue is "plurality". Those things, as far as I'm aware, are urban myths, not academic assessments. Pam is too good an academic from what you've quoted, for her to buy into such things. We cannot use her name to back ideas she has not actually articulated.
Why not just put her words you quoted on the talk page into the article? That would be excellent information for the article. Alastair Haines 02:04, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Just state the facts. Who said what, where and when. Actually, the following is technically NPOV reporting of a particular POV:
It's not our job to tell people which sources to trust. It's our job to tell people what the sources are, and where to find them. I'm sure you understand the point. Alastair Haines 04:33, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Alalstair, you said all this quite recently: Be careful about your descriptions of writers: Pam believes, has every right to do so, is backed by the majority and by , Pam is actually technically wrong to speak of Pam is too good a scholar, I'm sure, to Pam is too good an academic from what you've quoted, for her to she's trying to be a purist and present a purist case, Does it seem that you are conducting a personal debate, with this source, of a few sentences, and putting words into your "opponent's mouth" into the bargain? Be careful about your descriptions of writers, the way it is going is not my understanding of NPOV, more like a boxing match, Newbyguesses - Talk 07:20, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Good points - there are currently 28 footnote/refs, and several References, and Further reading. Each footnote supports a useful entry, and they consist in reliable, relevant sources. Baskervill&Sewell- An English Grammar is well used, AHD, Cambridge English Usage and Epicene ProNouns(Newman) also. User:Alastair Haines, who has contributed extensively, but did not originate the article, has a broad knowledge of the topic and extensively of these and considerable other relevant reference material. User:Newbyguesses, also a contributor, has also investigated these references, and those as can be got to online, such as Warenda. Naturally, the topic is suitable for a treatment utilizing the best of the plentiful available sources and references. This possibility is advantageous to seeking to raise the article at some point, when stability, quality and the efforts of editors concord, to good article status. The current useful, though by no means polished article is a credit to the originator, the further contributors, and particularly User:Alastair Haines for considerable contributions and maintenence to "Singular they" — Newbyguesses - Talk 02:40, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
Let me preface this by saying that English grammar is extremely convoluted. I'm not quite sure who the authority is on what is proper and what isn't, or if there should even be an authority on this matter at all. However, based on my teachings, including my completion of an English minor, I don't understand how the following example sentence used in this article reflects proper grammar:
Allow me to reword this sentence:
This rewording shows that the verb usage does not agree with the subject of the sentence. It seems to me that English grammar mandates that the example sentence read "The person you mentioned, is he/she coming?" such that, when the sentence is broken down to investigate the grammar usage, you can see that when reworded, the sentence reads "Is the person you mentioned coming?" which makes sense grammatically. If you're worried about gender specificity, the sentence may read "he/she," "he or she," "he" or "she." Personally, it doesn't bother me one bit as a male for someone to use "she" when speaking about a singular subject with an unknown gender. However, using "they" in this case -- as well as in many other cases -- creates a subject/verb conflict that is grammatically incorrect.
I understand that forms of "singular they" may have been used many times over in the past, but just because something has been done in the past -- no matter how often -- does not make it correct. I simply cannot get over this obvious subject/verb conflict.
As for how this discussion might contribute to the article, perhaps we ought to edit the section entitled "The case against." Rather than simply inserting quote after quote of example usage, we might consider explaining some logical arguments against "singular they," like this subject/verb conflict. As I mentioned previously, just because people used a certain kind of grammar in the past doesn't mean that it makes sense or is proper. Thus, listing quotes where singular they is not used doesn't really make a "case against" singular they.
BareAss 16:31, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
There is another example and supporting text that I think has errors. I am not great with grammar so forgive me if this is wrong:
Caesar: "No, Cleopatra. No man goes to battle to be killed."
Cleopatra: "But they do get killed".
— George Bernard Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra, 1901
Few people today would easily use he where Shaw used they....Semantically, however, they refers to the men who are killed, just as Austen's singular everybody refers to the people who get married.
"they" cannot refer to "the men who are killed." That usage is comic:
Caesar: "No man goes to battle to be painted blue."
Cleo: "But they (blue men) are all blue!"
I suggest "they" refers to "the men who go to battle". :)
The problem with this example is it's purpose (as per "Few people today..."), does not match the example. "But they do get killed." properly is plural (if ungrammatical) -- it is the group of men referred to by the singular "no man (of the group of men who goes to battle)". If that isn't severely incorrect, this is not a use of singular they. Robbiemuffin 17:32, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Much could be added to this article; equally, the running order could be improved: it is quite possible that this article could feature on the Good Article list, one day. Newbyguesses - Talk 15:57, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, their in the above examples is possessive case, is considered of plural number, third person and unmarked gender. According to E'day Oxfrd(81) p23 agree v. 7. to correspond in grammatical case, number, gender or person.(reff 8). Off to the state library to see what OEDii(89) has got. Newbyguesses - Talk 22:47, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Sorry Newbyguesses, but the article still doesn't have an argument against singular they. Removing section headings "for" and "against" does disguise the fact. I really don't think this article will be free of claims of bias unless both positions are labelled by heading and argued as strongly as possible by sources that represent them.
How would you describe the argument against singular they. What would you say are the best sources to find such an argument? Alastair Haines 08:09, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
A little more searching and I found:
It would appear that jede and oder prefer singular relatives in distributive constructions, unless gender marking makes this sound silly to a native German speaker.
In the second case, plural inflections seem to be used. I'm not sure how much lee-way German has in this. I suspect calling such relatives singular die would seem rather odd. Rather, the plural appears to be used to escape discordant gender distinctions, and seems natural enough because distribution can be conceived almost equally well as singular or plural. I'd appreciate a German native speaker helping us to understand what you do, bitte? Alastair Haines 14:53, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
David Kellogg Lewis, my favourite genius, considering 'Adverbs of Quantification' in Formal Semantics of Natural Language (1975) suggested some elements of natural language demonstrate a "quantification variability effect". This is pretty standard stuff now, cited as "the well-known QVE (Lewis:1975)".
For others with a mind to the academic stuff. Some liguists split quantifiers into two categories — D and A — standing for determiner-quantifiers and adverbial-quantifiers.
Others have done work on distributive constructions. Some languages have distributive particles or clitics. There are different types of distribution — distributive-key and distributive-share, as against non-distributive and unmarked varieties.
It would appear that distributive and epicene they are not new, not unique to English, and considered accademically quite independently of political or prescriptive issues. However, the one word that is not used in the serious literature to classify these uses of they (or analogs in other languages) is singular. Alastair Haines 16:00, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, these passages from "External Links" seem to suggest by "bound pronouns" or such what singular they is meant to convey.
frm transcript, on radio, Anyone who had a Heart... 04/05/2002
Geoff Pullum, (with Rodney Huddleston , Cambridge Grammar of the English Language), offers a descriptive analysis of how English grammar actually works.
transcript, Geoff Pullam:>In the other use, pronouns don’t really refer to anyone; they have antecedents like ‘everyone’ or ‘nobody’ or ‘all’ or ‘none’ or ‘who’ or ‘somebody’ or ‘anyone’, which don’t themselves refer. Take an example like:
The pronoun ‘they’ can’t be referring to anyone here, because the whole point of what the sentence says is that there weren’t any writers who said they enjoyed writing, so there’s no one to refer to. I won’t get all technical here about how pronouns of this sort work like bound variables in logic, but I will borrow the term from logic: I’ll call pronouns of this kind bound pronouns.
The relevance of the distinction is this: in English, the pronoun ‘they’ is fairly strictly limited to having a plural-inflected antecedent when it is used as a referring pronoun, but there is no such restriction when it’s a bound pronoun.
In The Cambridge Grammar we lay out the general ...<
frm...Steven Pinker The Language Instinct (1994) Chapter 12: The Language Mavens Sometimes an alleged grammatical "error" is logical not only in the sense of "rational" but in the sense of respecting distinctions made by the formal logician. Consider this alleged barbarism, brought up by nearly every language maven;
... is that everyone and they are not an "antecedent" and a "pronoun" referring to the same person in the world, which would force them to agree in number. They are a "quantifier" and a "bound variable," a different logical relationship. Everyone returned to their seats means "For all X, X returned to X's seat." The "X" does not refer to any particular person or group of people; it is simply a placeholder that keeps track of the roles that players play across different relationships. In this case, the X that comes back to a seat is the same X that owns the seat that X comes back to.
The 'their' there does not, in fact, have plural number, because it refers neither to one thing nor to many things; it does not refer at all. The same goes for the hypothetical caller: there may be one, there may be none, or the phone might ring off the hook with would-be suitors; all that matters is that every time there is a caller, if there is a caller, that caller, and not someone else, should be put off.
On logical grounds, then, variables are not the same thing as the more familiar "referential" pronouns that trigger number agreement (he meaning some particular guy, they meaning some particular bunch of guys). Some languages are considerate and offer their speakers different words for referential pronouns and for variables. But English is stingy: a referential pronoun must be drafted into service to lend its name when a speaker needs to use a variable.
Since these are not real referential pronouns but only homonyms of them, there is no reason that the vernacular decision to borrow they, their, them for the task is any worse than the prescriptivists' recommendation of he, him, his. Indeed, they has the advantage of embracing both sexes and feeling right in a wider variety of sentences.<
So, does singular they refer, then, to situations which can be described as involving "bound pronouns" (or, bound variables)? – Newbyguesses - Talk 08:52, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
I have a suggestion, and Alastair, as an experienced editor, would like your opinion. Looking at Wikipedia:Embedded list#"References" and "External links", would it be suitable for this article to combine both, and we have a (Foot)-Notes section also. WWW sources referenced in this article to date are of the highly reliable and well-respected type; so, footnotable. Those accesed by myself, all still "Live links", would appear to have equivalent verifiabilty as library material has. Now, your thoughts? Cheers, U: Newbyguesses - Talk 13:07, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Notes (for the footnotes) Material referenced (strictly for references) Further reading - Bibliography - (if needed) Literary Quotes - Compendium --
An apt quotation is like a lamp which flings its light over the whole sentence. - Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Romance and Reality
Try to bridge each sentence with the sentence before it by using an idea or word that appears in both sentences. Use consistent vocabulary in parts that are technical and difficult. To decide which parts of the sentence are going to be difficult for the reader, try to anticipate the reader's resistance to the ideas.
I shall never be ashamed to quote a bad author if what he says is good.
— Seneca the Younger, On Tranquility of Mind
“ | In a pinch, any orphan quote can be called a(n old) Chinese proverb. | ” |
— Ralph Keyes, Nice Guys Finish Seventh: False Phrases, Spurious Sayings, and Familiar Misquotations (1992)
|
There are a number of such Quotation Templates found at [[Category:Quotation templates]], the setting out of the article is affected by such choices. These are deep waters for me, relying on gut-instinct on matters of "style" , trying to upgrade my skill-sets, still I reckon there have been improvements to this article, Alastair, since we started working together. Cheers Newbyguesses - Talk 22:53, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Description of German usage. 2002: "Pronouns and determiners referring back to jemand [someone] and niemand [no one] have the masculine singular form: Niemand, der es weiß [no one who (masc.) knows it]; Jemand hat seine Tasche vergessen [someone has forgotten his bag]." [3]
2007: "After the hard times of the 20th century, the average citizen is willing to tolerate unfairness as long as his living standard improves." [4]
This sentence is backed by a footnote to Huddleston and Pullum. I'm sure they can't say it, 'cause it almost contradicts itself.
"The third of these example sentences, in which their refers back to singular student, is acceptable, especially in speech, for many users of English, but some prescriptive grammars have objections to it."
To say that a usage is "acceptable" is to be prescriptive. How can the grammars that prescribe singular they have objection to what they prescribe? Is the following what is intended:
"The third of these example sentences, ..., is acceptable, ..., it is prescribed as acceptable by Huddleston and Pullum."
Or was something else intended?
Also, linguists are allowed to be prescriptive, be we can't be. We can only say: "X is used (example)"; "Y says, 'Z is acceptable/unacceptable for reasons A, B, C.' " Alastair Haines 14:28, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry to notice this question so late. The kernel seems to be My point is that "acceptable" includes a value judgement, hence it is prescriptive.
Not at all. H&P are using the word "acceptable" in its regular linguistics sense. This is explained in many introductory linguistics texts. Or you could look up "Acceptability" in Crystal's Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics; the entry in its third edition (old, but the only one I have on me) is far too long for me to think of regurgitating it here (quite aside from copyright considerations), but I'll quote the first sentence: The extent to which linguistic DATA would be judged by NATIVE-SPEAKERS to be possible in their language. (Capitalization is used for cross referencing.) Note that there's nothing here about the extent to which respondents would like TV announcers, their children, or others to speak in this way. A test item might include James asked Mary to cook for himself; I think that any native speaker would call this unacceptable (in the linguistics sense) and the linguist would then describe it as unacceptable; neither the test respondent nor the linguist would think of "prescribing" the simple accusative him in this example.
Acceptability sounds like grammaticality, and the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably. However, within the Chomskyan tradition there's a distinction between the two, going back at least as far as Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965). Where (or as far as) the two are distinguished, acceptability does not have connotations of propriety, elegance, etc.; it's tangential to the realm of the prescriptivists. -- Hoary 04:39, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
...Comment added at 05:40, 21 July 2007 by Alastair Haines
I don't think I was begging any question. I was instead responding in a way that I hoped would be helpful to a question about the word "acceptable". Still, since you do bring up a number of points:
Incidentally, I'm puzzled by your use of "save" in edit summaries; this seems utterly uninformative to me. -- Hoary 06:07, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
The following is an English translation of an Italian journal article. It concerns interpretation of the Song of Songs. Emphasis is added.
“ | LINGUAGGIO EROTICO IN CANTICO E PROVERBI
(V. Cottini) A language of love & even of eros, is used to express the relationship between wisdom and men. This is a characteristic of Israel's sages, also found in Ben Sira and in the Wisdom of Solomon. An inquiry is conducted into some love terms, such as dod, ahavah, achot, matsa - baqash, etc., both in the Song of Songs and in the Book of Proverbs. It reveals a close relationship between the wisdom books mentioned. It also shows how strong a force is love in human experience. Dame Wisdom present in creation reveals herself as the lover of men and their spouse. The biblical sages perceived that love and wisdom are two related realities, both divine and human, linking God, man and the world together. |
” |
The use of their in the second sentence is hard to call "singular" their, but the point of the example is that the sentences in bold are well formed English sentences, that depend for their coherence on use of generic masculine. The writer does intend that women can be wise and embrace wisdom, they are included by using generic men. However, the writer is equivocating on this word, as he intends it also as specifically masculine -- wisdom as spouse in the second sentence.
John Lennon also points out the gender inclusive nature of the word man in his famous song Imagine -- "a brotherhood and sisterhood of man". Clearly, he did not intend to say that men are sisters to other men, rather that humanity embraces both men and women. Of course, others would take offence at Lennon, and consider him sexist, rather a pity really. I can't work out which is a sadder alternative phrase: siblinghood of persons, which is neutral to the point of losing all heart; or cameraderie of humanity, which loses the concept of family solidarity.
I have some soures that make points like these, the place for most of them is at Gender neutral language though. Just came across the first quote above while I was researching something else today, so thought I'd drop it in here for comment. Cheers. Alastair Haines 19:12, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
“ | Two main syntactical patterns are identified: one, where hayah [Hebrew to be/become] is a 'full verb', with complete predication; the other, where it is a verb of 'incomplete predication' with a predicative complement referring to the subject. In the forms of v'yehi and v'hayah it introduces a circumstance ('protasis') preceding the main sentence ('apodosis'). Protasis and apodosis are its 'subject' and the whole complex is verbal. In this case, hayah plays a 'macrosyntactical function', i.e., it connects the circumstance to the main line of communication. In all its functions hayah is a normal verb, not a 'copula'. It agrees with the subject as other verbs do and is not a 'fossilized auxiliary'. A sentence with a finite form of hayah is not nominal but verbal. The presence of hayah is needed to express past and future information. For present information, no form of hayah appears since this verb is not used in the participle. | ” |