Gender-neutral pronouns, and neopronouns specifically, are not an exclusively English phenomenon. However, since the previous pronoun to enter English was its in the 16th century, even ne is comparatively new.
The earliest attempt, ne/nis/nim, dates back to 1850. Not all neopronouns are 20th-century inventions. But pronouns like ‘e, eir, em’, coined by Michael Spivak in 1983, are recent additions to the language. Singular they has been used by the likes of Geoffrey Chaucer and Jane Austen. Not all gender-neutral pronouns are neopronouns. This refers to a newly-coined pronoun (think neologism) which has been created to fill the perceived lack of a gender-neutral option in English. The neopronoun is a specific type of gender-neutral pronoun.
The American Dialect Society selected the pronoun singular they, especially in light of rising gender-neutral uses, for their 2015 Word of the Year on the heels of the news that the Washington Post would now allow this use in their articles. However, acceptance of this use has been evolving. In both cases, singular they is a common option, though historically some style books and grammarians have considered it incorrect. This is an indefinite use of gender-neutral pronouns-the gender of each person isn’t specified. The second use case is for grammatical situations where gender is ambiguous, or is simply irrelevant, such as “Everyone should remember to bring their textbook to school tomorrow.” In this case, picking just he or just she may be inaccurate, and saying he or she is needlessly cumbersome when a simple they can be used. In this case, the pronouns he and she can be seen as too narrow to cover the identity of someone who falls outside the gender binary. The first is gender nonbinary people who prefer not to be referred to with gendered terminology. This word is most often used in connection to two situations.
0 kommentar(er)
