Singular "They"

Agreement and Concord

Abstract

This paper explores the morphosyntactic features of the phenomenon ‘singular “they”’. It distinguishes between ‘epicene’ and ‘non–binary “they”’. The analysis draws on the pronoun’s historical development, Agreement and Concord theory, the distribution of the third–person singular inflection “–s”, morphological structure analysis, and morphosyntactic analyses. The findings support that both types of ‘singular “they”’ are felicitous to use in discourse.