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The singular and plural use of they can be compared with the pronoun you, which had been both a plural and polite singular, but by the 18th century replaced thou for singular referents. [141] For "you", the singular reflexive pronoun (" yourself ") is different from its plural reflexive pronoun (" yourselves "); with "they" one can hear either ...
Singular they is a use of they as an epicene (gender-neutral) pronoun for a singular referent. [7] [8] In this usage, they follows plural agreement rules (they are, not *they is), but the semantic reference is singular. Unlike plural they, singular they is only used for people. For this reason, it could be considered to have personal gender.
The plural may be used to emphasise the plurality of the attribute, especially in British English but very rarely in American English: a careers advisor, a languages expert. The plural is also more common with irregular plurals for various attributions: women killers are women who kill, whereas woman killers are those who kill women.
The English pronouns form a relatively small category of words in Modern English whose primary semantic function is that of a pro-form for a noun phrase. [1] Traditional grammars consider them to be a distinct part of speech, while most modern grammars see them as a subcategory of noun, contrasting with common and proper nouns.
they are (third-person plural, and third-person singular) Other verbs in English take the suffix -s to mark the present tense third person singular, excluding singular 'they'. In many languages, such as French , the verb in any given tense takes a different suffix for any of the various combinations of person and number of the subject.
However, while these are grammatically possible, they are rare, and plural forms are almost always used in their place. Many different sign languages have been explicitly described as having quadral pronoun forms. [g] [h] Estonian Sign Language has even been described as having the quadral for nouns. [145]
Love, Adam, Emily, Sarah, and Zach.” (Sometimes the comma before “and” is left out, and that is not technically incorrect, but you’ll always be fine if you include it.) Forgetting the ...
'Your friends have arrived - they were early.' Note: plural masculine ils used if group has men and women b. Vos amies sont arrivées — Elles étaient en avance. 'Your friends FEM have arrived FEM - they FEM were early.' Note: plural feminine elles used if group has only women; noun is feminine (amies), as is past participle (arrivées)