Kato at UC Berkeley and Johns Hopkins

Second-year linguistics undergraduate Andrew Kato wrote to the Editor recently, with an update on ongoing research on epicene pronouns in English and German. Andrew will be presenting the findings from this research at two upcoming undergraduate conferences:

I’m to present at Johns Hopkins next month and at Berkeley in April on research regarding ongoing phenomena in epicene (i.e., gender-indeterminate) anaphora in English:

• Fourth Annual Richard Macksey National Undergraduate Humanities Research Symposium (March 24-25)
  “They/them/theirs: The morphosyntax and language reform of epicene pronouns in 21st-century Germanic”
• Seventh Annual Berkeley Undergraduate Linguistics Symposium (April 14-15)
  “Anaphoric relations in English epicene pronominalization: Language form and linguistic theory”

For additional information, I encourage you to briefly read my abstract for the upcoming Macksey Symposium below:

“In recent years, increasing consensus among English speakers for an inclusive pronoun regardless of gender has materialized in mainstream usage of “they” in singular contexts. Especially among situations in which the gender identity of someone is unknown or nonbinary, opting for “they” — referred to as an epicene pronoun — has increased in both written and spoken English. This development represents one of historically many in English, including the generic “he,” along with more recent neopronoun alternatives. The transition of defaulting to “they” represents an ad-hoc solution to a centuries-old gap in the morphological inventory of English — the absence of a pre-existing epicene-singular pronoun. Moreover, the current decrease of gender-assuming pronoun usage is not isolated. Rather, it falls within both overarching inclusive language reform in English as well as similar transformations in other Germanic languages. Importantly, how can these ongoing developments be grounded in linguistic theory, and how do they interface with morphosyntax and discourse? With this question in mind, this analysis connects the small but growing body of linguistic work on English epicene pronouns to current in-depth theories of anaphora, namely Government and Binding Theory and the more recent Minimalist Program, that have largely yet to be applied to the singular “they.” By relating these diachronic changes to additional Germanic languages such as German, Dutch, and Afrikaans, the phenomena in English epicenity (e.g. plural agreement despite singular antecedents, and mixed acceptability over “themself” versus “themselves”) can serve as a point of comparison extending beyond English itself.”

Exciting work, Andrew!