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> "Singular they" still normally pairs with plural forms of other words I'd point out those "plural forms" are now "singular forms" as well, so it looks like t
by jpmattia 11y ago
> "Singular they" still normally pairs with plural forms of other words
I'd point out those "plural forms" are now "singular forms" as well, so it looks like those terms will need refining.
- dragonwriter 11y ago> I'd point out those "plural forms" are now "singular forms" as well No, they're still plural, just as they are when combined with other grammatically plural pronouns that are used with singular semantics (the royal/editorial use of "we" and -- even more commonly -- "you", the second-person plural pronoun that has in virtually all uses displaces the singular one.)
- jpmattia 11y agoLike I said: Those terms will need refining, and all you've done is add "grammatical" and "semantic" to differentiate the cases.
- dragonwriter 11y ago> Those terms will need refining But they won't. We've used "plural" and "singular" fine in referring to the grammatical features of verb tenses and the nouns/pronouns they agree with just fine for centuries, despite the fact that grammatical number of "we", "they", and especially "you" has often -- for longer than we've even had formalized descriptions of English grammar -- disagreed with semantic number. There's nothing new here to necessitate "refining" anything.