Research

This work investigates the syntactic and semantic distribution of reflexive forms themself vs. themselves. We focus on whether the use of -self vs -selves is affected by specificity of the antecedent, distinguishing seven levels for a singular antecedent: quantified indefinites (some/any), quantified universals (each/every/no), generic kind definites, specific indefinites, specific definites, unknown specific person, named person. We administered an online acceptability judgment survey to 1,127 participants, recruited on Twitter and Prolific, who rated sentences on a 5-point Likert scale from “very natural” to “very unnatural,” in a randomized order, and then completed a short demographic survey. We find that antecedent type, -self/-selves form of the anaphor, and social variables including age, gender, and endorsement of prescriptive language ideology all affected how participants rated the sentences; themself was generally rated higher than themselves for most antecedents, contra previous findings. Our results seem to indicate that themself is preferred by many English speakers for singular antecedents, and also that the singular use of themself/themselves is a sociosyntactically active and salient variable across those speakers.

This paper presents a Minimalist syntactic analysis of sociopragmatically conditioned gender features on pronouns. To account for inter- and intra-speaker variation, I locate the parameter for social gender in the presence or absence of an unvalued gender feature on the phase head D. Supporting this analysis, I show that variation in English speakers’ acceptability and use of definite, specific singular they (as in (1) below) is sensitive to reference; this sensitivity is robustly explained by the location of gender features on D.
(1) Taylor is writing their own autobiography.

For speakers who report (1) as ungrammatical, a crash results from the uGender on D remaining unvalued. For innovative speakers, uGender is not present on D and no crash results from a lack of gender features. This analysis explains why a pragmatic feature like social gender can cause true syntactic ungrammaticality, since the narrow syntax encodes certain pragmatic features as obligatory

Pronouns are a grammatical element that take the place of full noun phrases, and in many of the world’s languages, pronouns also convey social information such as the gender of a referent. This chapter surveys the literature on the linguistics of pronouns from a broad array of disciplinary perspectives, focusing on the way social categories of gender interact with linguistic factors. The first section reviews gendered pronouns through the lens of performativity and speech act theory, discussing how pronouns and misgendering can be used for impoliteness and politeness. The second section surveys some semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic analyses of pronouns, including debates on the semantic and syntactic category of pronouns in the grammar. While the bulk of this chapter focuses on gendered pronouns in English, the third section provides a cross-linguistic perspective of gendered pronouns and inflectional morphology, and more interactional data is discussed.

This dissertation revisits the question of the syntactic and semantic status of pronouns, incorporating new syntactic, sociolinguistic, and pragmatic data to support an analysis of n-to-D head movement in the nominal domain. The support for pronouns originating in n comes from predicative pronouns, including pronominal relative clauses (1) and depronominalizations (2).
(1) he who is without sin
(2) That person is a she.
I compare predicative pronouns with variable grammatical restrictions on singular ’they’ using data from two sociolinguistic studies that I conducted. I show that there is an effect of speaker age on production and perception of definite, specific uses of singular ’they’ (dsT) as in (3), while definite generic (4) and epicene uses (5) are more broadly accepted.
(3) Jayden forgot their homework.
(4) The ideal student never forgets their homework.
(5) Every student should do their homework.
I take the sociolinguistic variability in singular ’they’, particularly the differences related to age, as evidence of an ongoing change in the grammar of English towards increasing use and acceptance of the type shown in (3). The inclusion of dsT in the grammar predicts intraspeaker sociopragmatic variation in pronoun use, and this prediction is borne out. Through variable rankings of pragmatic constraints I show that dsT enables speakers to include or exclude gender features from pronominal choices in order to achieve strategic discourse goals in various contexts. The n-to-D head movement analysis that I propose accounts for predicative pronouns, as well as differences in grammaticality of dsT and its related discourse-sensitivity, by separating pronouns into sub-classes depending on how far head raising proceeds. For predicative pronouns, external determiners (overt or covert) block head movement completely, and pronouns stay in n. For epicene pronouns like (5) and definite generic antecedents like (4), the pronoun raises from n to an intermediate functional projection (Num) but is merged with a variable D. Finally, referential (specific) pronouns like (3) are formed through movement from n through Num to D, where the pronoun combines with a phase head D that is linked to a discourse referent. Because phase edges are sensitive to discourse context, it is only when a pronoun moves to D that it is evaluated for context-appropriateness relative to the referent picked out by D. This system of context-appropriateness necessitates analyzing the natural gender features of pronouns as less like noun classes and more like honorifics, in that they signify social relationships rather than grammar-internal categories. An honorific analysis of gendered pronouns more robustly explains the sociopragmatic variation found in natural language use, and is more generalizable cross-linguistically.

This work investigates the syntactic and semantic distribution of reflexive forms themself vs. themselves. We focus on whether the use of -self vs -selves is affected by specificity of the antecedent, distinguishing seven levels for a singular antecedent: quantified indefinites (some/any), quantified universals (each/every/no), generic kind definites, specific indefinites, specific definites, unknown specific person, named person. We administered an online acceptability judgment survey to 1,127 participants, recruited on Twitter and Prolific, who rated sentences on a 5-point Likert scale from “very natural” to “very unnatural,” in a randomized order, and then completed a short demographic survey. We find that antecedent type, -self/-selves form of the anaphor, and social variables including age, gender, and endorsement of prescriptive language ideology all affected how participants rated the sentences; themself was generally rated higher than themselves for most antecedents, contra previous findings. Our results seem to indicate that themself is preferred by many English speakers for singular antecedents, and also that the singular use of themself/themselves is a sociosyntactically active and salient variable across those speakers.

This paper describes an ongoing shift in the pronominal system of English that is primarily related to transgender and non-binary identities. Apparent time evidence suggests that this is an ongoing change, and metalinguistic comments support the indexical link between the change and the increased visibility of transgender and non-binary English speakers. Sociopragmatic variation enabled by this change shows that the pronoun system of English functions much less like a grammatical gender (noun class) system, and much more like a system of honorifics. The second half of the paper puts forward a position for social justice around pronoun use and gender autonomy, including advice for professional linguists who work in related fields.

Despite being regarded by some as the most humanistic of the social sciences, linguistics has been criticized for its undertheorized application of the notions of race and ethnicity. This white paper is written for practicing linguists. We provide definitions of these terms and develop attendant issues that contribute to their complexity, such as the multiplicity and fluidity of racial identification. A survey of methods texts reveals that limited attention is given to race and ethnicity in training researchers. To address this need, the bulk of the paper uses a “challenges and recommendations” format to work through common design concerns and suggest better practices. We consider issues pertinent to collecting information about self-identification in a range of study types, from quantitative, experimental, computational or intuitional approaches to qualitative and mixed methods designs. We consider the advantages and disadvantages of eliciting demographic data using multiple-choice, free-response and interview formats, and offer recommendations drawing on best practices from within linguistics and its sister fields. Ethical concerns are raised, including using locally constructed labels, respecting communities, analyst positionality, recognizing the potential for harm. Throughout, brief examples are provided where possible to speak concretely to linguists’ concerns. The final section presents a detailed case study of the decision-making process for a multi-phase research project in which ethnic identification was explicitly investigated. Our goal is to provide researchers with tools to reflect on their own study design, reflect on their own responsibility to participants and communities, and design study prompts that allow more nuanced representation of race or ethnicity.

Pronouns are a grammatical element that take the place of full noun phrases, and in many of the world’s languages, pronouns also convey social information such as the gender of a referent. This chapter surveys the literature on the linguistics of pronouns from a broad array of disciplinary perspectives, focusing on the way social categories of gender interact with linguistic factors. The first section reviews gendered pronouns through the lens of performativity and speech act theory, discussing how pronouns and misgendering can be used for impoliteness and politeness. The second section surveys some semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic analyses of pronouns, including debates on the semantic and syntactic category of pronouns in the grammar. While the bulk of this chapter focuses on gendered pronouns in English, the third section provides a cross-linguistic perspective of gendered pronouns and inflectional morphology, and more interactional data is discussed.

This dissertation revisits the question of the syntactic and semantic status of pronouns, incorporating new syntactic, sociolinguistic, and pragmatic data to support an analysis of n-to-D head movement in the nominal domain. The support for pronouns originating in n comes from predicative pronouns, including pronominal relative clauses (1) and depronominalizations (2).
(1) he who is without sin
(2) That person is a she.
I compare predicative pronouns with variable grammatical restrictions on singular ’they’ using data from two sociolinguistic studies that I conducted. I show that there is an effect of speaker age on production and perception of definite, specific uses of singular ’they’ (dsT) as in (3), while definite generic (4) and epicene uses (5) are more broadly accepted.
(3) Jayden forgot their homework.
(4) The ideal student never forgets their homework.
(5) Every student should do their homework.
I take the sociolinguistic variability in singular ’they’, particularly the differences related to age, as evidence of an ongoing change in the grammar of English towards increasing use and acceptance of the type shown in (3). The inclusion of dsT in the grammar predicts intraspeaker sociopragmatic variation in pronoun use, and this prediction is borne out. Through variable rankings of pragmatic constraints I show that dsT enables speakers to include or exclude gender features from pronominal choices in order to achieve strategic discourse goals in various contexts. The n-to-D head movement analysis that I propose accounts for predicative pronouns, as well as differences in grammaticality of dsT and its related discourse-sensitivity, by separating pronouns into sub-classes depending on how far head raising proceeds. For predicative pronouns, external determiners (overt or covert) block head movement completely, and pronouns stay in n. For epicene pronouns like (5) and definite generic antecedents like (4), the pronoun raises from n to an intermediate functional projection (Num) but is merged with a variable D. Finally, referential (specific) pronouns like (3) are formed through movement from n through Num to D, where the pronoun combines with a phase head D that is linked to a discourse referent. Because phase edges are sensitive to discourse context, it is only when a pronoun moves to D that it is evaluated for context-appropriateness relative to the referent picked out by D. This system of context-appropriateness necessitates analyzing the natural gender features of pronouns as less like noun classes and more like honorifics, in that they signify social relationships rather than grammar-internal categories. An honorific analysis of gendered pronouns more robustly explains the sociopragmatic variation found in natural language use, and is more generalizable cross-linguistically.