Re: Epicene pronoun in english?

At 14:44 5.3.2004, And Rosta wrote:

>That said, single-referent _they/them_ is normally used only
>when the sex of the referent is unknown or deliberately
>concealed by the speaker. I could not, for instance, say
>"I was talking to BP the other day, and they [=BP] told
>me...". So the default rule for BrE is that the sex of
>the human referent must be specified if known, which is
>still not an ideal state of affairs.
That is true also of the Swedish epicene pronoun _den_,
which has a long tradition as a personal pronoun for
all non-human grammatically non-neuter referents.

It's use a an epicene pronoun essentially follows the
rules for its use with reference to higher animals,
where _den_ would be used if the sex of the animal was
not known, or if the animal was not considered as a
person (this varies, as we all know).

It is funny that _den_ is now perceived as epicene, as it
historically derives from the accusative of a masculine
demonstrative pronoun (_þann_ = OE _þone_).

/BP 8^)
--
   B.Philip Jonsson mailto:melrochX@melroch.se (delete X)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Truth, Sir, is a cow which will give [skeptics] no more milk,
and so they are gone to milk the bull."
                                     -- Sam. Johnson (no rel. ;)