Sanford Anthony J, Filik Ruth
Department of Psychology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2007 Feb;60(2):171-8. doi: 10.1080/17470210600973390.
The plural pronouns they and them are used to refer to individuals with unknown gender and when a random allocation of gender is undesirable. Despite this apparently felicitous usage, "singular they/them" should raise processing problems under the theory that pronouns seek gender- and number-matched antecedents. Using eye-tracking, we investigated whether there was any processing cost associated with using singular they/them. There was a clear cost of number incompatibility for they/them. Thus, although singular they/them is in current usage, it does not appear that they/them is immediately tolerant of a plural antecedent, though such may be rapidly accommodated. The data are consistent with the search account of pronoun resolution and preserve the semantics of they/them as denoting plurality.
复数代词“they”和“them”用于指代性别未知的个体，以及在不希望随机分配性别的情况下。尽管这种用法看似恰当，但根据代词需寻找性别和数匹配的先行词这一理论，“单数they/them”应该会引发处理问题。我们使用眼动追踪技术，研究了使用单数“they/them”是否存在任何处理成本。对于“they/them”，存在明显的数不兼容成本。因此，尽管单数“they/them”目前在使用中，但似乎“they/them”并不能立即容忍复数先行词，不过这种情况可能会很快得到适应。这些数据与代词解析的搜索理论一致，并保留了“they/them”表示复数的语义。
