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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ClarenceInWonderland" data-source="post: 6223152" data-attributes="member: 6749732">I did mention that later in the same post: I find it interesting that singular "them/their" has taken over as an anaphoric pronoun (making reference to a noun earlier in the sentence), but English speakers have yet to develop something similar for subject pronouns.  I suspect it’s because subjects necessarily carry semantic baggage which indicates the specifics on who is doing the action. Anaphoric pronouns just refer back to something already indicated, so "3rd person" is enough info. It seems that semantic baggage on "he" is dependent on speaker: some here (like myself) feel that in subject position:  (a) "she" has a [+feminine] feature, "he" has a [+masculine] feature, and "they" has a [+plural] Others fell that: (b) "she" has a [+feminine] feature, "he" has [–plural] and "they" has [+plural]And here lies the problem. For speaker (a), "he" cannot be used generically and such usage may come across as sexually biased. For speaker (b), "he" is perfectly acceptable as it doesn’t carry any gender features at all. So we’ve got two different grammars going on here and it is up to the writer to determine which grammar is appropriate to writing RPG manuals. Non-gendered pronouns might develop one day in English. English Creoles like Papua New Guinea Tok Pisin (3rd person ‘em’) or Sierra Leone Krio (3rd person ‘i’) have already done so.</blockquote>

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