Over the last two decades, there has been an increase in the use of the pronoun ‘they’ to refer to singular, epicene antecedents.
However, this increased usage has given rise to concern about the extent to which such usage affects antecedent resolution and discourse comprehension. In this study our goal was to examine how the usage of singular ‘they’ impacts sentence comprehension as a function of individuals’ familiarity with such usage, and the nature of the semantic and syntax context in which such usage occurs.
Related manuscripts
The P600 for singular “they”: How the brain reacts when John decides to treat themselves to sushi.