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Singular they

Singular they is an epicene (gender-neutral) third-person pronoun in English. It typically occurs with an indeterminate antecedent, to refer to an unknown person, or to refer to every person of some group, in sentences such as:

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Overview

Inflected forms and derivative pronouns

Usage

Acceptability and prescriptive guidance

Grammatical and logical analysis

Comparison with other pronouns

Use of singular they in question tags

Advanced semantic analysis

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Map overview Semantic statistics

Singular they

Nodes116
Edges115
Triples90
Avg. degree1.98
Density0.017241
Components1

How this topic connects Entity context

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Singular they

Top relations

related to Contemporary usage · 11
Singular they → American, American Speech, Australia, British, Darren, English, In, LaScotte, Similarly, Some, The
related to Usage guidance in British style guides · 10
Singular they → Dictionary, Fielding, Fowler's Modern English Usage, In, It, Modern English Usage, Numerous, Sir Ernest Gowers, Thackeray, The
related to Inflected forms and derivative pronouns · 9
Singular they → English Language, Huddleston, In, It, Its, Like, Payne, The Cambridge Grammar, Themself
related to Usage · 9
Singular they → An, British, British National Corpus, English, Informal, Jürgen Gerner, Middle English, Old Norse, They
is a · 3
Singular they → cognitively efficient substitute for generic he or she, epicene, most popular pronoun set used by non-binary people
related to Usage guidance in English grammars · 3
Singular they → English Language, The Cambridge Grammar, Use
related to Cognitive efficiency · 2
Singular they → Clauses, On
related to Referential and non-referential anaphors · 2
Singular they → In, The
related to Regional preferences · 2
Singular they → Canadian, The Canadian

Important terminology Word statistics

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Important terminology

singular use pronoun english pronouns used antecedent usage person plural generic american gender one language refer writing gender-neutral also people

Entity relationships Subject–Predicate–Object triples

SubjectPredicateObjectConfidenceSrc
Singular theyis aepicene0.90text
Singular theyis amost popular pronoun set used by non-binary people0.90text
Singular theyis acognitively efficient substitute for generic he or she0.90text
anybodyinstance ofespecially after indefinite pronouns and determiners0.80text
... everyinstance ofespecially after indefinite pronouns and determiners0.80text
etc.instance ofespecially after indefinite pronouns and determiners0.80text
after gender-neutral nouns such as personinstance ofespecially after indefinite pronouns and determiners0.80text
someoneinstance ofinadequate as they do not include people who identify as neither male nor female.Use with a pronoun antecedentThe singular antecedent can be a pronoun0.80text
anybodyinstance ofinadequate as they do not include people who identify as neither male nor female.Use with a pronoun antecedentThe singular antecedent can be a pronoun0.80text
or everybodyinstance ofinadequate as they do not include people who identify as neither male nor female.Use with a pronoun antecedentThe singular antecedent can be a pronoun0.80text
or an interrogative pronoun such as whoinstance ofinadequate as they do not include people who identify as neither male nor female.Use with a pronoun antecedentThe singular antecedent can be a pronoun0.80text
crowd or teaminstance ofthat is somewhat similar to the implied plurality of collective or group nouns0.80text

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    Min side: 3
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