Glossa

a journal ofgeneral linguistics

Bjorkman, Bronwyn M. 2017. Singular they and the syntactic representationof gender in English. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 2(1): 80. 1–13,
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.374

SQUIB

Singular they and the syntactic representation ofgender in English
Bronwyn M. Bjorkman

Queen’s University, 99 University Ave, Kingston ON K7K, 1W4, CA
bronwyn.bjorkman@queensu.ca

Singular they enjoys a curious notoriety in popular discussions of English grammar. Despite
this, and though its use with quantificational, non-specific, and genuinely epicene antecedents
dates back at least to the 1400s (Balhorn 2004), it has been little discussed in formal linguistics.
This squib suggests an analysis of this longstanding use of they, while also describing a more
recent change in they’s distribution, whereby many speakers now accept it with singular, definite,and specific antecedents of known binary gender. I argue that the distribution of they, in bothconservative and innovative varieties, has implications for our understanding of the syntactic
representation of gender in English, the structure of bound variable pronouns, and the regulationof coreference.
Keywords: features; gender; pronouns; variable binding

1 Introduction

This paper addresses general issues of pronominal binding and coreference, though its
empirical focus is comparatively narrow, being mainly concerned with the distribution of
so-called singular they in Modern English, and the evidence that distribution provides forthe syntactic representation of gender features in the language.
For a functional element, singular they enjoys a curious notoriety, particularly among
non-linguists. Though sometimes discussed as though it were a twentieth century innovation, introduced due to feminist backlash against epicene he, in fact it has been usedin contexts like those in (1), with quantificational, non-specific, and genuinely epicene
antecedents, going back at least to the 1400s (Balhorn 2004). Bodine (1975) notes thatprescriptive edicts against singular they, by contrast, date back only to the 1700s, andnever successfully eradicated singular they from standard English usage.
(1)

a.
b.
c.
d.

Everyone should know their own phone number.
Could Janet or Thomas introduce {themselves/themself}?
(Seeing an unidentified distant figure:) They’re waving at us.
(After answering a phone call:) They had the wrong number.

Theoretical work on the English pronominal system has largely overlooked the use of theyin (1), though it has been described in sociolinguistic and some psycholinguistic studies.
The focus of this paper, however, is not on this longstanding use of they, but instead on amore recent change in they’s distribution, which appears to have been overlooked even indescriptive work. This change is visible in contexts like those in (2), where some speakers

Art. 80, page 2 of 13

Bjorkman: Singular they and the syntactic representation of gender in English

accept they even with an antecedent that is singular, definite, and specific, referring to anindividual whose binary gender is known to both speaker and hearer.1
(2)

a.
b.
c.

%The professori said theyi cancelled the exam.
%Our eldest childi broke theiri leg.
%I’ll let my cousin introduce themselves.1

Not only has this extension of they gone unreported, it also presents an additional puzzle,
in that even speakers who accept singular definite specific they as in (2) generally do not
accept sentences like those in (3), where the antecedent remains singular, definite, andspecific, but is now a proper given name or gender-specific noun.2
(3)

a.
b.
c.

*Janeti said theyi cancelled the exam.
*Thomasi broke theiri leg.
*I’ll let my sisteri/fatheri/aunti introduce themselvesi.

The contrast in acceptability between (2) and (3) has been made more striking byincreased cultural visibility of nonbinary individuals—individuals who identify withneither masculine nor feminine gender, and so who cannot be referred to with either the
singular masculine pronoun he or the singular feminine pronoun she. Many nonbinary
individuals prefer singular they as a pronoun of reference, and they is sometimes said
to have the advantage of being already part of English grammar, in contrast to fully
innovative alternatives.3 It is thus surprising that even for innovative they users, thecurrent status of they in English is apparently insufficient to render sentences like those in(3a–b) automatically acceptable, even for speakers who accept sentences like those in (2),and even if Janet and Thomas are known to name nonbinary individuals.
Internalized cultural assumptions that all humans can be sorted into binary gendercategories likely form part of the obstacle to adopting they as a singular pronounof reference—but the contrast between (2) and (3) reveals that there may also be agrammatical obstacle as well. This paper is not intended to argue against adopting they
as a singular pronoun of reference for nonbinary individuals, but instead to clarify thegrammatical status of they among contemporary English speakers, and so to clarify whatchanges are involved in extending they further to examples like (3a–b).
From a theoretical perspective, this paper argues that the distribution of they has
implications for our understanding of both bound variable pronouns, and the role ofgender in regulating pronominal coreference. In the first case, I argue that we needa syntactic account in which bound variables (optionally) instantiate fewer feature
distinctions than their full referential counterparts. The distinction among pronoun types
proposed by Déchaine & Wiltschko (2002) offers the right kind of distinction in thisrespect, while the widely adopted mechanism of Feature Transmission (Heim 2008) usedin much semantic work to account for features on bound variables cannot account for theattested distribution of singular they.
From this point forward in the paper, I consistently use the reflexive form themselves even as the non-pluralreflexive of they, though it should be noted that some speakers prefer themself. There is also independent
variation with theirself/selves.
2
For at least some speakers, they is possible with given names if the referent is of unknown gender, or of
known nonbinary gender. But because the empirical focus of this paper is on the contrast between (2)and (3), and to avoid a proliferation of marks to indicate different distributions of grammaticality, in theremainder of this paper examples like those in (3) are marked as ungrammatical.
3
A number of gender non-specific pronouns have been formally proposed in various sources, including e/em/eir (Spivak 1990), hu/hum/hus, ze/zir/zir, ze/hir/hir, thon/thon/thons, and many others.
1

Bjorkman: Singular they and the syntactic representation of gender in English

Art. 80, page 3 of 13

Accounting for the innovative use of they in (2), by contrast, requires an account of
the status of gender features in English, and the role of these features in regulating pronominal coreference. I suggest that for innovative they users, gender has ceased to be acontrastive feature on pronouns, instead becoming a fully optional semantic feature. But
even for these speakers, a subset of English nouns—proper names and gender-specificnouns—remain syntactically specified for gender features, and mechanisms of coreference
resolution in discourse prevent they from referring back to any antecedent that was previously specified for gender.
The paper begins in sections 2–3 by briefly reviewing previous work on the distribution of singular they in English, and by describing in more detail the innovative use of
they with singular definite specific antecedents. Sections 4–5 then turn to details of the
proposed analysis.

2 A brief history of they

As noted above, they has been possible with quantificational, indefinite, and epicene
antecedents throughout the Modern English period.4 The examples in (4), from
Shakespeare, Swift, and Austen, are typical in this respect. Other historical examples
involve definite antecedents that are nonetheless generic or non-specific (e.g. the ideal
candidate), or involve an antecedent of unknown gender.
(4)

a.
b.
c.

Shakespeare (A Comedy of Errors, 1623)
There’s not a man I meet but doth salute me
As if I were their well-acquainted friend
Swift (Polite Conversation, 1738)
Every fool can do as they’re bid.
Austen (Pride and Prejudice, 1813)
Both sisters were uncomfortable enough. Each felt for the other, and ofcourse for themselves[.]Though prescriptive objections to singular they may have reduced its use in much formal
writing, especially in more linguistically conservative American sources, singular they
has remained well attested in speech and less formal writing through to the present day(Bodine 1975; Matossian 1997; Baranowski 2002). Studies as far back as Bate (1978) haveshown that singular they is used even by speakers who self-report that they do not use it
at all, and a long record of psychological studies has shown that English speakers do notin fact interpret generic he as gender-neutral (Martyna 1978; MacKay & Fulkerson 1979;
Gastil 1990; Foertsch & Gernsbacher 1997; Miller & James 2009).
Bodine (1975) provides the following examples of naturally-occurring singular they“collected by the author from the ordinary conversation of native speakers of American
English holding bachelors, masters, and doctoral degrees.” (139):
(5)

a.
b.
c.
d.

Did everyone say they missed you like mad yesterday?
Somebody left their sweater.
Not one single child raised their hand.
When you call on a student, it’s better if you can remember their name.

Haegeman (1981)—the sole generative paper to comment on this use—gives a number ofexamples similar to those in (5), and directly states:
4

I use “quantificational” and “indefinite” in a slightly imprecise sense, including singular WH-items and freerelatives, as well as nominals with determiners such as every, no, each, both, any, no, some, each, and indefinite a. I use “epicene” to refer to antecedents of unknown, indeterminate, or mixed gender.

Art. 80, page 4 of 13

Bjorkman: Singular they and the syntactic representation of gender in English“It is important to add that this use of they/their is restricted to generic nominals
which are unmarked for sex: no instances of such a neutral singular they are to befound with (i) referentially specific nominals (my teacher); (ii) sex-specific nominals (sister, mother, etc.).” (Haegeman 1981: 237)
The examples from Shakespeare and Austen above already show that the second of theserestrictions is too strong, as we see bound variable they with nominals like man or sister. We
will return to the first restriction below, in discussing the innovative use of singular they.
Recent studies of pronoun use have continued to find an association between they andquantificational, indefinite, and epicene antecedents, even when not using this semantic
terminology. Newman (1992), analyzing a corpus of spontaneous speech from nine
television shows, suggests that singular they prefers “nonsolid” antecedents, where “solidity”
is intended to combine referentiality, specificity, and definiteness. Newman states this as apreference rather than an absolute requirement, but none of the examples of potentially solid
antecedents in the paper—all of which appear in (6)—involve truly definite and specificsingular antecedents for they. In (6a) the antecedent one is nonspecific (though contextuallyreferring only to women married to men); in (6b) it is a free relative whoever is chosen; in (6c)
it is an nonspecific partitive one of them (in context, one of a set of male doctors).
(6)

a.

b.
c.

If one is signing and thinking that their husband is representing that there
isn’t any other relationships, there isn’t any problems there, and they dothat as part of the consideration for the agreement, then, of course, you
can test it and determine and develop the information that shows that thatwasn’t so. And that they were being misrepresented.
I’m sure that whoever is chosen, probably their viewpoints will be at least
reasonably known on those issues.
Just before the program, we looked up one of them, and they’re not in
there.

Matossian (1997), perhaps the most comprehensive study of the colloquial use of singularthey to date, adopts Newman’s distinction of the “solidity” of antecedents in her study ofepicene pronouns in sociolinguistic interviews conducted in Philadelphia and Minneapolis.
Again, though Matossian describes the association of they with nonsolid antecedents as apreference, and does not directly comment on whether they ever appears in her data witha specific definite antecedent of known binary gender, all of the examples given in thedissertation of potentially solid antecedents appear to be either indefinite or nonspecific.
A selection of Matossian’s examples of singular they appear in (7), including the single
example given of a singular definite antecedent for they (7a) (where the antecedent isnonspecific the other).
(7)

Matossian (1997: 164–166)
a. Usually, if one [spouse] is Catholic, as long as the other’s Catholic, whichever nationality they are doesn’t matter, as long as they’re Catholic. I mean
if they’re a good Catholic, you know.
b. [Q: What would happen if a girl asked a boy to dance?] They—some people
would dance with them, but, like, others wouldn’t. [Q: How come?] It depends on the girl—who the girl is.
c. I consider [childbirth] the most important event of my life. An’ it’s somethin’ I’ll never forget, an’ I’m glad I had the opportunity to have a child an’
to see everything. I can’t imagine anyone just being knocked out an’ wakeup an’ have the baby in their arms. I think they miss so much.

Bjorkman: Singular they and the syntactic representation of gender in English

Art. 80, page 5 of 13

Throughout the modern English period, then, it appears that they has been possible as
a bound variable (with quantificational or indefinite antecedents), and with genuinely
epicene antecedents, those of indeterminate, mixed, or unknown gender (as in the case ofnon-specific definites like the ideal student).5
Finally, note that we cannot account for this use of they—what we might call theconservative distribution of singular they in English—simply by proposing that genderor number features are optionally absent in these contexts, because they is restricted to
singular animate antecedents. When the referent of a pronoun is inanimate, the pronoun
it is obligatory.67
(8)

a.
b.
c.

Every book lost its/*their cover.
I like my local grocery store. I recommend it/*them to you.7(Seeing a distant object, which cannot be identified:) I think it’s/*they’re a tree.

Interestingly, this restriction to animates remains true even for speakers for whom theyis possible with specific definite singular antecedents of known binary gender, what wemight call the innovative distribution of singular they, to which we turn in the next section.

3 Innovative they with specific definite antecedents

Though previous descriptions have reported that they is not possible—or is strongly
dispreferred—with singular definite antecedents, or as a referential pronoun when thegender of the antecedent is known to both the speaker and hearer, we already saw in the
introduction that for some contemporary speakers they is fully grammatical in these contexts.
(9)

a.
b.
c.

%I really love their costume. (e.g. while pointing someone out)
%My friend left their sweater here.
%Your research assistant said they’ll be joining the call later.

The judgements reported in this paper on the innovative use of they are those of theauthor, confirmed in consultation with other native English speakers from the US andCanada, and via observation of the use of they in speech and writing over several years.
Approximately 20 speakers have been consulted in detail regarding the judgements overall,and though not all of them accept the use of they illustrated in (9), all sentences marked
with ‘%’ have been systematically accepted by a subset of speakers consulted. Whilefirm generalizations are not possible based on this small sample, it appears that younger
speakers more often accept the innovative use of they, while older speakers are more likely
to find it ungrammatical or pragmatically odd. Confirmation of this age-grading, or further
conclusions regarding possible regional or social factors, must await a larger scale study.
If we were to inspect only the examples in (9), we might hypothesize that for innovative
speakers gender specification has become optional even on pronouns, the sole context
Indeed, some English speakers not only allow they as a bound variable in quantificational contexts, but actually require it, even with antecedents like every boy or no woman. Determining whether this covaries with
the innovative use of they discussed in section 3 is beyond the scope of this paper, but it has pedagogicalimplications, as students who are native English speakers may reject classic diagnostics involving complex
binding judgements if they are presented with bound variable he or she. Further, it may be more accurate tosay that epicene they is possible when the gender of the referent is not in the common ground: consider (1d),where they is used to refer to a caller who had the wrong number. Most speakers I have consulted regard
the use of he or she to be mildly infelicitous in this context, even if the speaker did form some opinion about
the gender of the caller on the basis of their voice. What appears to allow the use of they in this context isthat the addressee does not know the gender of the referent.
6More accurately, it is required for non-persons: both non-human animals and small children and infants canbe optionally referred to as either they or it in the contexts in (8), despite being animate. I nonetheless refer
to it as inanimate, following standard terminology.
7
Them is acceptable here, but only referring to a collective, i.e. “the people who run my local grocery store”.
5Art. 80, page 6 of 13

Bjorkman: Singular they and the syntactic representation of gender in English

where it remains morphologically reflected. As a consequence, the distinction between
singular she/he and plural they would also be lost, bringing the third person in line withsecond person number-neutral you.
But this simple explanation could not explain the fact that there are speakers who produce examples like those in (9), and who judge them to be fully grammatical, but whoneither produce nor judge grammatical examples like those in (10) (assuming that Janetand Thomas name individuals of known binary gender).8
(10)

a.
b.
c.

*I just saw the lead actressi, and I really love theiri costume.
*Janeti left theiri sweater here.
*Thomasi said theyi’ll be joining the call later.

The examples in (9) and in (10) differ only in that the examples in (10) involve genderspecific nouns or proper given names. But if the examples in (9) were grammatical due tothe loss of gender features in English, then we would expect they to be possible with all
singular definite antecedents, including those in (10).
The contrast between (9) and (10) also cannot be attributed to the increased “solidity” ofproper names, i.e. their referential specificity and definiteness when compared with othernouns, because innovative speakers do generally accept they with last names introduced
by non-gender-specific titles. Some innovative they users also report that they improves
with names that have both masculine and feminine associations, like Chris or Alex, withinternet handles, even those that are gender-specific (but are nonetheless not traditional
names).9
(11)

a.
b.
c.

%I just saw Chrisi, and I really love theiri costume.
%Professor Smithi left theiri sweater here.
%moongirl17i said theyi’ll be joining the chat later.

These names are as referentially “solid” as the names in (10); they differ in lacking the
traditional gender associations of English given names. I suggest below in section 5 thatthough they is a pronoun not specified for gender (or for number), its extension into thespace of definite specific pronouns reveals the vestiges of syntactically-represented genderin English, as well as the role of gender features in regulating pronominal coreference.

4 Accounting for bound variable and epicene they

I argue in this section that the conservative distribution of singular they reflects a contrastive three-way distinction among gender features ([masc] v. [fem] v. ∅), with its
quantificational and indefinite uses arising because bound variable pronouns correspondto a smaller structure than do their referential counterparts (following e.g. Déchaine &Wiltschko 2002, 2015).
I assume a realizational view of the syntax-morphology interface, in which potentially
underspecified morphological items compete to realize a fully specified syntactic representation. In this type of system, they emerges as the elsewhere realization for English
The judgements in (10b–c) become more complex if the names refer to individuals of known nonbinary
gender—though it is striking that even many innovative they speakers have difficulty extending they to nonbinary individuals, and go through a period of making errors in pronoun use despite efforts to avoid them.
This suggests that using they in contexts like those in (10b–c) requires genuine grammatical adjustment
even for innovative they users.
9
Though speakers do report a contrast between (10) and (11), these judgements are somewhat more variable
than others reported in this paper. It is also possible that when presented as abstract examples, speakers
treat the examples in (11) as involving referents of unknown gender. These potential confounds make thisa potentially fruitful area for future large-scale studies of singular they in naturally-occurring discourse.
8

Bjorkman: Singular they and the syntactic representation of gender in English

Art. 80, page 7 of 13

pronouns, occurring in the absence of any Ф-features that would trigger insertion ofanother pronoun. They cannot be specified for number, as it occurs in both singular andplural contexts.10 It cannot be specified for gender, because it is not gender-specific. And it
cannot be specified for animacy, as it occurs as both the animate and inanimate plural.11
The realization rules for third-person pronouns in English are as in (12), restricting
ourselves to nominative forms for the sake of simplicity:12
(12)

a.
b.
c.
d.

[fem] [sg] ↔ she[masc] [sg] ↔ he[inanimate] [sg] ↔ it
elsewhere ↔ they

Against this backdrop, consider the question of whether gender in English is contrastive.
A syntactic feature [F] can be thought of as contrastive if the absence of thatfeature is semantically interpreted as ¬F. This has been widely used to allow greater
underspecification of binary contrasts: a semantic distinction between, for example,
singular and plural number thus does not require two features [sg] and [pl] (or [+sg]and [–sg], etc.), but can instead be represented by a single feature (either [sg] or[pl]). That feature is either present or absent in the syntax, but its absence results
in a positive semantic interpretation through the mechanism of contrast. A language
like French, with a classic two-way contrast in gender, is naturally accounted for inthese terms: feminine gender corresponds syntactically to a positively specified feature([fem]), while masculine is not [–fem] but instead corresponds to the absence of agender feature, and thus masculine is also the default gender used in cases of gendermismatch and in epicene contexts.
We have already seen, however, that neither he nor she can be used in English in agender-neutral or epicene context. This can be explained if neither masculine nor feminine
is unspecified (featurally “unmarked”) in English, and if the features [masc] and [fem]are both contrastive: because conservative varieties require either he or she for singulardefinite specific antecedents of known gender, the absence of [masc] on a pronoun must
be interpreted as ¬masc, and the absence of [fem] as ¬fem.
What if a singular pronoun bore neither of these gender features? Contrast would resultin such a pronoun being interpreted as ¬masc&¬fem (i.e. neither masculine nor feminine). This interpretation conflicts with the strong pragmatic assumption that animate
individuals (especially humans) can be exhaustively categorized as either masculine or
feminine. A singular pronoun with no gender features thus would not be interpreted as
referring to an individual who is neither masculine nor feminine, but instead with aninference that the gender of the referent is unknown, nonspecific, or otherwise indeterminate.13 Here contrastive ternary gender ([masc] v. [fem] v. ∅) accounts for epicene uses
Note that even singular uses of they fail to trigger third person singular agreement forms on the finite verb
(is, was, has, or -s), instead triggering the default “plural” forms (are, were, –∅).
11
Whether they is also underspecified for person depends on the representation of third person. While there isa long tradition arguing that third person corresponds to the absence of any more specific person features(represented in recent work by Anagnostopoulou 2003; Béjar & Rezac 2003; Harley & Ritter 2002, among
many others), authors such as Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou (2006) and Nevins (2007) have argued thatthird person does have some positive feature specification.
12
These realization rules could be simplified if plural pronouns are never specified as [masc], [fem], or[inanimate], on the grounds that there are no gender or animacy distinctions in the English plural—in
other words, that gender and animacy features are representationally dependent on a [sg] feature. This
option is pursued, for example, in the discussion of singular they in Cowper & Konnelly (2017). If pluralpronouns are simply never specified for gender or animacy, then the feature [sg] in the realization rules in(12) would be redundant, and could thus be eliminated.
13
This system of contrastive ternary gender could be seen as a remnant of the masculine/feminine/neuter
grammatical gender system of Old English, still preserved in other Germanic languages. Once nouns lost10

Bjorkman: Singular they and the syntactic representation of gender in English

Art. 80, page 8 of 13

of they in the same way that contrastive binary gender (most often [fem] vs. ∅) accounts
for epicene uses of masculine singular pronouns in languages such as French.
The above account does not yet address the use of they with quantificational antecedents:
if gender is contrastive, we might expect bound variable pronouns to be obligatorily
marked for gender, at least when their domain is restricted to either masculine or feminine
entities. And yet, contrary to this expectation, we have already seen that even in its
conservative distribution, bound variable they occurs with gender-specific antecedents, in11
the examples from Shakespeare and Austen in (4).
The use of they with antecedents like no man or both sisters suggests that gender features
between boundare
variablesandreferentialabsent
pronouns.
Déchaine& Wiltschko(2002)(perhaps
optionally)
on boundvariables.
Rather thanstipulating this optionality,
propose that pronouns
fall
least threeby their semanhowever,weintocanatexplain
it in classes,
terms ofdistinguisheda structural difference
between bound variables andtics and morphosyntax,
andfurther thatthese threeclasses (2002)
correspondto different
referential
pronouns.
Déchaine& Wiltschko
proposethat pronouns fall into at least
sizes of syntactic
projection:
DP pronouns
interpreted
definitereferring andex- further that these three
threeclasses, distinguished
byare
their
semanticsas
andmorphosyntax,
pressions, ΦP pronouns
as variables,
and NP pronouns
as predicates.
classes correspondto different
sizes of syntactic
projection: DP pronouns are interpreted as
Déchaine &definite
Wiltschko(2015)
argue directlythat English
pronouns
referring
expressions,ФP pronouns
as variables,
andcanNPrealpronouns as predicates.
Déchaine
Wiltschko(2015)
argue
directlythat English
pronounsize either DP structures(in&theirreferential
use)
or ΦP
structures(as boundvari- can realize either DP(in theiruse) oraФP
structures(as boundvariables). As the nameables). As the structuresname suggests,
ΦP referential
pronouns include
projection
associatedwithФP pronouns
a projection
with Ф-features,
but lack a higher
Φ-features, butsuggests,
lack a higher
DP layer.include
The distributionof associatedthey as a variablecanDP
layer.
The
distribution
of
they
as
a
variablecanbeaccounted
forwitha minimallybe accounted for with a minimally richer structure than Déchaine & Wiltschko prostructure& Wiltschko
propose,with asoneSteriadditional head in the ФPpose, with one richer
additional
head thanin theDéchaineΦP domain.
Following
work suchdomain.
Following
work
such
as
Steriopolo&
Wiltschko(2010),
I assume here that gender
opolo & Wiltschko (2010), I assume here that gender on English pronouns is locatedon English
pronouns
is located tohighin they
the nominal
spine—that
high in the nominal
spine—that
it corresponds
whatcall discourse
gender,it corresponds to what
14
they
call
discourse
gender,i.e.
genderthatisdeterminedbyof the discourse
i.e. gender that is determined by properties of the discourse referent. Whileproperties
for14
referent. discourse
While forgender
Steriopolo& Wiltschko
discourse
is located on D, I suggest
Steriopolo & Wiltschko
is locatedon D, I suggest
thatgenderin English
thatinEnglishitoccurslower,
withintheФPdomainthoughnonethelesshigher than theit occurs lower, within the ΦP domain though nonetheless higher than the heads
0
associatedwithnumber(n(Num)and ofanimacy(never), neitherof which is ever optional0 ), neither
associated withheads
number(Num) andanimacywhich isoptional
15
on
bound
variables.
15
on bound variables.

(13)

(13)

DP
ΦP

D
Φ
(MASC/FEM)

NumP
Num
SG

nP
n0

√

INANIMATE

The crucial assumption here is that gender features in English ([MASC] and[FEM]) are located on a higher head than either number or animacy. Bound variable

arbitrary grammatical gender features, a cultural or pragmatic assumptions that all persons are either maleor female would eliminate the previously available category of animate neuters, leaving genuinely epicene
0 . See Kramer (2016) for an overview of arguments
monly associated withthe root itself
or withantecedents
to insteadbenrealized
by an elsewhere form.
14
This
is
higherthan
thepositiontypically
assumedfor grammatical or semantic gender, most commonly
in favour of a low position for grammatical gender, acrossa numberof languages.
0
5 To the extent that someassociated
with
the
root
itself
or
with
n
.
See
Kramer(2016)
for an overview
speakers disprefer he or she as bound variables, it might
be possible
to locateof arguments in favour of alow position for grammatical gender, across a number of languages.
gender on English 15pronouns
on D. This would eliminate the need for a projection ΦP in (13), which
To the extent that some speakers disprefer he or she as bound variables, it might be possible to locate gender
treads quite close toona dedicatedGender Phrase.
Such
a projection
by authors
English pronouns
on D. Thiswould
eliminatehas
thebeenneedproposed
for a projection
ФP in (13), which treads quite
such as Picallo (1991),
buttoisaargued
againstby Kramer
among
close
dedicated
GenderPhrase. (2015;
Such a 2016),
projection
hasothers.
been proposed by authors such as Picallo (1991),
but is argued against by Kramer (2015, 2016), among others.

4 This is higher than the position typically assumed for grammatical or semantic gender, most com-

Bjorkman: Singular they and the syntactic representation of gender in English

Art. 80, page 9 of 13

The crucial assumption here is that gender features in English ([masc] and [fem]) arelocated on a higher head than either number or animacy. Bound variable pronouns cancorrespond either to a full ФP, in which case they will be specified for gender, number,and animacy, or to NumP alone, in which case they will lack any gender specification.
I assume that referential pronouns always correspond to the full DP structure, and so
are obligatorily specified for gender (except in the above-noted cases, where contrastive
non-specification of gender gives rise to an epicene interpretation). This departs from
Déchaine & Wiltschko (2002), who assume that any given pronoun in a language will
reliably correspond to DP or ФP or NP. The structural variability of individual pronouns
is predicted on a realizational approach to morphology, however, and so represents amodest extension of their proposal.
This proposal departs significantly from the standard treatment of features on boundvariables in the literature, via the mechanism of Feature Transmission proposed by Irene
Heim (detailed, for example, in Heim 2008). Heim notes that person and number featuresappear to be formally uninterpreted on bound pronouns, on the sloppy identity reading
in examples such as (14):(14)

Only I love my mother. (Nobody else loves their mother.)Feature Transmission addresses this issue by proposing that the Ф-features of bound variables (e.g. [1sg] features on my) are morphosyntactically copied from the binder to thevariable, but totally absent on the LF branch, and thus without semantic effect.
Feature Transmission has a number of drawbacks as a morphosyntactic mechanism. In
particular, instances of variable binding across finite clause boundaries would requirefeature copying in violation of syntactic locality conditions—but it also faces a serious
empirical challenge in the distribution of bound variable they. To account for the fact thatthey alternates with both he and she as a bound variable in English, we might be tempted
to suggest that Feature Transmission is simply optional, and that in its absence we findthe elsewhere pronoun they. What this would not account for is the fact that it does notalternate with they—and neither does my in examples like (14). For this reason, Feature
Transmission cannot account for the distribution of they as a bound variable—and also
cannot account for its occurrence as a referential pronoun, either with epicene antecedents or in the innovative distribution.

5 Accounting for singular specific definite they

While the use of they as a bound variable and epicene pronoun is long standing, its extension to specific definite contexts appears to be a recent innovation. Any account of thegrammar of innovative they users must explain how they can refer to specific individualsof known binary gender, while nonetheless also explaining why it remains impossible
when its antecedent has been introduced by a gender-specific noun or proper name.
Consider again the examples in (15), repeated from (9) but now showing the variation
between they and he or she. In these examples the referent of they is animate, singular,
both definite and specific, and of known binary gender.
(15)

a.
b.
c.

I really love {her/%their} costume. (e.g. while pointing someone out)
My friend left {his/%their} sweater here.
Your research assistant said {she’d/%they’ll} be joining the call later.

For speakers with the conservative distribution of they, for whom they is uniformly
unacceptable in (15), gender is grammatically obligatory on referential pronouns, in thesense that it must be expressed whenever the gender of the referent is known.

Art. 80, page 10 of 13

Bjorkman: Singular they and the syntactic representation of gender in English

For speakers with the innovative distribution of they, by contrast, specifying genderon referential pronouns is possible (and often pragmatically preferred) but evidently
grammatically optional. Why then do innovative they speakers pattern with conservative
speakers in requiring he or she in examples like those in (10), repeated in (16)?
(16)

a.
b.
c.

*I just saw the lead actressi, and I really love theiri costume.
*Janeti left theiri sweater here.
*Thomasi said theyi’ll be joining the call later.

The simple fact that innovative speakers can use they for referents of known binary
gender, interchangeably with he or she, is sufficient to demonstrate that for these speakers
gender is no longer contrastive on pronouns: for such speakers the absence of gender
does not convey that gender is unknown or indeterminate (though it is compatible withthose interpretations). Following Wiltschko (2008), I refer to this type of semanticallyinterpretable yet optionally specified feature as an adjunct feature, notated as <f>. For
speakers with the innovative distribution of they, then, the contrastive features [masc]and [fem] have been replaced (at least on pronouns) by the optional and non-contrastive
features <masc> and <fem>. The realization rules for pronouns remain the same,
however, so that he and she surface whenever these optional features are present.
The non-contrastive status of gender features does not explain why they cannot referback to a singular gender-specific noun or proper name in (16), however. To account for
this, I suggest that though English lacks arbitrary grammatical gender, nouns like actressand given names like Janet and Thomas are nonetheless syntactically associated withgender features. The restriction of nouns like actress to feminine reference is thus nota purely semantic fact, but instead reflects the presence of a syntactic gender feature.16
Nouns associated with gender features include gender-specific nouns, including kinshipterms (boy, girl, man, woman, nephew, neice, father, mother, etc.), some names of professions(actress, waitress, stewardess, etc.), and proper given names.17
Associating these nouns with gender features is not in itself enough to account for theirincompatibility with they, however: we might expect that because they is underspecified,
it could freely occur as a default pronoun regardless of the features of its antecedent. To
rule out examples like those in (16), we need to ensure that pronouns are never specified
for fewer features than their antecedents: if a pronoun refers back to an individual
introduced by a noun like actress, which bears a feminine gender feature, the pronoun
For conservative speakers, these would remain the contrastive features [fem] and [masc], but for innovative speakers we can ask whether gender on nouns and names, like gender on pronouns, has become an
adjunct feature. In favour of this possibility, we have already seen that nouns like friend can be referredback to by singular they without any implication that the gender of the friend is unknown. This suggeststhat for innovative speakers gender cannot be contrastive on gender-non-specific nouns like friend, and sogiven the logic of contrast it is not expected to be contrastive on any other nouns.
Simply because a feature is not contrastive, however, does not mean that it is not obligatory on somenouns. Kramer (2015) implements arbitrary lexical gender in terms of selectional requirements: in the caseof a noun like actress the suffix -ess itself would realize a <fem> n0 head; other gender-specific nominals,
like mother or nephew, may be selected by a similar (but unpronounced) n0 head, or may realize a root thatis directly specified for a gender feature (though this requires that formal features can occur on roots). Thisis a different structural position for gender than was assumed above for pronouns; similarly, Steriopolo &Wiltschko (2010) locate the the gender of nouns such as actress or mother, which they refer to as as semantic
gender (determined by properties of the nominal itself), on the root itself, while the discourse gender featuresof pronouns (determined by properties of the discourse referent) occur higher.
17
I list feminine profession terms because it is not clear whether the non-feminine variants of these nouns—
e.g. actor—imply a masculine referent. In some cases the previously-masculine term has been extended tocover all members of a profession, but in other cases terms like steward do seem to be restricted to men. It
is interesting that in some domains a novel gender-neutral term has been adopted (e.g. server in place ofwaiter/waitress) perhaps suggesting that the previous “neutral” (i.e. non-feminine) term had a masculine
association for many speakers.
16

Bjorkman: Singular they and the syntactic representation of gender in English

Art. 80, page 11 of 13

must similarly bear a feminine feature, and be realized as she. This feature matchingrequirement cannot be attributed to a syntactic mechanism such as Agree, moreover,because the inability of they to refer back to gender-specific antecedents also holds acrossclauses, as in (16a).
Hence the second part of the explanation, which is that coreference (as opposed to binding) is subject to a dynamic condition on feature matching: referential pronouns can only
be interpreted as referring to a previously-introduced referent if they bear a superset ofthe features that have already been associated with that referent in a discourse. In otherwords, a pronoun can add to the linguistic features associated with a referent, but it cannot underspecify them.
Consider the case where a referent is introduced with a noun phrase like my friend, asin (15b). For innovative they users, gender features are syntactically optional, and so thenew discourse referent established by my friend has no gender information associated with
it. It can therefore be referred back to by a pronoun that similarly lacks any gender feature(they)—or by he or she, either of which would then introduce gender information (and so
prevent subsequent reversion to gender-non-specific they).
By contrast, if a referent is introduced by a gender specific noun like actress, or by aproper name such as Janet, then it is immediately associated with the gender feature
borne by those nominals, here <fem>. Here subsequent reference to the same entity
would require the pronoun she, even for innovative they users: they is excluded because it
does not maximally match the formal features previously associated with the referent in
the discourse.
For conservative they users, by contrast, all referential nouns must be associated withgender features (when the gender of the referent is known), because for these speakers
gender features remain contrastive, even when they are not morphologically expressed.
For these speakers they will always fail to maximally match the features of any specificreferent of known gender, and so will never be felicitously used in examples like (15).

6 Coda: they as a nonbinary pronoun of reference

The goal of this paper has been to draw attention to the complexities of singular they inmodern English, both in its long-standing use as a bound variable and epicene pronoun,
and in its apparent recent extension to use with definite and specific antecedents.
Returning to the difficulty that many speakers have in accommodating they as a pronoun of reference for nonbinary individuals, I am proposing that this arises not only frompragmatic or cultural assumptions about the binarity of gender, but also from a grammatical property of given names in English. What is necessary in order to adopt they as a
singular pronoun of reference, on this account, is to unlearn the generalization that given
names are uniformly syntactically associated with gender features.

Abbreviations

fem = feminine, masc = masculine, pl = plural, sg = singularAcknowledgements

The ideas presented here have benefitted from conversations with many people over several years, both linguists and people outside the field. Special thanks are due to Elizabeth
Cowper, Daniel Currie Hall, and Lex Konnelly, as well as to participants in the Linguistics
Research Group at Queen’s University. Thanks also to three anonymous reviewers, whose
comments were helpful in improving the final version of the paper.

Competing Interests

The author has no competing interests to declare.

Art. 80, page 12 of 13

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How to cite this article: Bjorkman, Bronwyn M. 2017. Singular they and the syntactic representation of gender inEnglish. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 2(1): 80. 1–13, DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.374
Submitted: 05 March 2017

Accepted: 12 July 2017

Published: 06 September 2017

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