约翰逊

Personal pronouns have been hard to alter. That is now changing fast. 人稱代词：从一成不变到日新月异。

Not so long ago a man could be jailed in Texas for sex with another man. In 2015 a county clerk in Kentucky was jailed for refusing to certify the marriage of two men. Gay rights in America proceeded at an extraordinary rate between Lawrence v Texas （2003）， in which the Supreme Court struck down1 sodomy laws， and Obergefell v Hodges （2015）， which made gay marriage legal across the country.

Transgender rights came next into public view. “Transparent2”， a successful television show， has put trans people at the heart of a complex universe. The case of Caitlyn Jenner3， who had been an Olympic gold medallist as Bruce Jenner， helped bring not just visibility4 but greater acceptance. In liberal circles， being openly transphobic5 is becoming unacceptable， proceeding along the same trajectory6—but much faster—as attitudes towards homophobia or racism.

With mores7 around sex and gender already on the move， it is little surprise that non-binary8 people are on the frontlines of a rights revolution. The grammar of the English language is part of the battlefield. Gay rights involved a small linguistic shift—people getting used to saying “Steve’s husband”. Treating people who have transitioned to another gender with respect required another adjustment： swapping9 “he” and “she”， and often learning a new name and avoiding the old one.

But non-binary people， who may identify as of no gender， both， fluid or something else， ask for a change at the very guts of English. Many ask to be referred to either by an invented pronoun， such as “ey” or “ze”， or， more commonly， as “they”.

This is hard for many others， because pronouns are a “closed” class of words， according to linguists. Adjectives， nouns and verbs are “open”： they can be coined10 at will. Tell a tiny child that a kind of bird is called a “wug”， and not only do they immediately accept the existence of the wug; they work it into their grammar， knowing that the plural must be “wugs”. Adults may be more conservative， rejecting words they do not like， but they still accept new nouns and verbs all the time. Long-term changes in the meaning of nouns， verbs and adjectives are also routine. Few words mean exactly what they did centuries ago： “buxom11” once meant “obedient”， for example.

But grammatical intuitions12 are more deeply disturbed by the addition of new pronouns， which is why invented ones like “ze” have failed to spread widely. Singular “they”， though， is different. “They” is an old English word. And contrary to the common myth， it can have single antecedents13， as in the case of “someone left their umbrella here.” This is not a concession to modern feminism （avoiding “someone left his umbrella”）. It goes back to the 14th century in English， and has appeared in fine literary sources continually ever since.

But this use of “they” is unusual： traditionally it can refer back only to an indefinite antecedent. “A student must have left their umbrella” is uncontroversial. But “Steve must have left their umbrella” is jarring14. So is “my best friend must have left their umbrella”： even if the hearer does not know if the friend is male or female， the speaker presumably15 does. So those non-binary people asking to be called “they”， as in “Taylor left their umbrella”， are up against the ingrained16 grammar of many listeners.

But just how ingrained is that grammar？ Lauren Ackerman， a fellow at Newcastle University， conducted a small study. Forty people rated the “naturalness” of sentences like “Someone dressed themselves” and “Chloe dressed themselves”. （She also tested “themself”.） Few were bothered by “someone dressed themselves”. Contrary to Ms Ackerman’s prediction， responses were all over the scale for “Chloe dressed themselves”. Moreover， Ms Ackerman found that of the subset17 （nine） of the test-takers who regularly interacted with someone transgender， acceptability was higher on average—and it increased with the frequency of the interaction with that person.

The study is far too small to be definitive. As academics always say， more research is needed. But it is clear that something is afoot18 here. It goes hand-in-hand with a rising belief that the gender binary is a social construct. Most members of “Generation Z19”， aged 13—20 in a poll taken in 2016， agree with statements like “gender doesn’t define a person as much as it used to” （78%）， and 56% know someone who uses a nontraditional pronoun， against 43% for those 28—34. Pronouns may not be such a closed class after all.

不久以前，一名男子还会因与同性发生性关系而在得克萨斯州锒铛入狱。2015年，肯塔基州某县一牧师因拒绝为两名男子证婚而被判入狱。从2003年劳伦斯诉得克萨斯州一案迫使最高法院废除鸡奸法，到2015年奥贝格费尔诉霍奇斯一案使得同性婚姻在全美合法化，美国法律正以惊人的速度赋予同性恋各种权利。

变性人的权利问题继而進入了公众视野。一档名为《透明家庭》的电视节目风靡美国。该节目将变性人置于错综复杂的世界的中心。节目邀请了凯特琳·詹纳担任嘉宾。变性前“她”是布鲁斯·詹纳，获得过奥运会金牌。“她”的出现不仅让人们意识到变性人的存在，更让人们开始接受他们。在开明人士看来，在公开场合对跨性别表现出恐惧，正如对同性恋表现出恐惧或持种族歧视态度一样，越来越让人难以接受，只是人们对跨性的接受更快。

随着性和性别观念的改变，“非二元性别者”走向性别权利革命的前沿也就不足为奇了。英语语法成为这场革命的阵地之一，同性恋的权利问题也引起了语言上一个小小的变化。现在，人们对“史蒂夫的丈夫”这种称呼已经习以为常。然而，对变性者以礼相待，还需在语言上另作调整：互换“他”和“她”，学会称呼变性后的新名字，摒弃变性前的老名字。

然而，“非二元性别者”的身份可以是无性人、双性人或性别不定等。他们要求英语从本质上做出改变。他们中的很多人呼吁人们在称呼他们时使用新造的代词（如ey或ze）或者比较常用的代词they。

语言学家表示，这样做对很多人来说并不容易，因为代词属于“封闭”词类，形容词、名词和动词则属于“开放”词类，可随意创造。倘若告诉小孩，有一种鸟叫wug，他们不仅会立刻接受wug这种鸟的存在，还能通过所学语法判断其复数必定为wugs。相比之下，成年人兴许会更保守些，尽管他们会拒用不喜欢的词，却也不断接纳新名词、新动词。名词、动词和形容词历经久远，含义会发生改变，这也是常有之事。历经若干世纪而仍能保留其原有含义的词，可谓寥寥无几，例如，buxom一词原本意为“顺从的”，而今则是“丰满的;健美的”的意思。

然而，语法直觉会因纳入新造代词而遭受深切冲击，从而导致像ze这样的新造代词未能得到广泛使用。单数they则不同。they来自古英语。与人们通常持有的错误观念相反，they的先行词可以是单数，比如可以说someone left their umbrella here。避免表述成someone left his umbrella并非是对现代女权的让步。这种改变可以追溯到14世纪，自那以来，很多优秀的文学作品中都可以看到这种用法。

但they的这种用法非同寻常：传统上，它只能指代不定先行词。例如，a student must have left their umbrella不会引发争议。然而，Steve must have left their umbrella听起来就很刺耳。my best friend must have left their umbrella这句话也是如此：听者不清楚这位好友的性别，说话者大概应该心中有数。因此，“非二元性别者”呼吁人们用they称呼他们，这就跟说Taylor left their umbrella一样，与许多听者心中根深蒂固的语法规则背道而驰。

但是这种语法规则到底有多根深蒂固呢？纽卡斯尔大学的研究员劳伦·阿克曼对此做了一个小型研究。测试中包括Someone dressed themselves和Chloe dressed themselves这样的句子。她还将themself放入了测试句子中。研究请40个人对这些句子的“自然程度”评级。结果显示：没有几个受试者接受不了Someone dressed themselves这句话;而与阿克曼女士的预设相反的是，对Chloe dressed themselves这句话，评级涵盖了各个级别。此外，阿克曼女士还发现，经常与变性人互动的9位受试者对这句话的接受度高于平均值，而且，互动越频繁，接受度越高。

此项研究囿于规模，无法得出确切的结论。正如学者们总是挂在嘴上的那句话：尚需更多研究。但毋庸置疑，相关研究已经启动了。这与一个日益深入的信念紧密相关，即性别二元属于社会建构。2016年的一项民意调查显示，13—20岁的“Z世代”中，大多數（78%）认同诸如“性别不再像过往那样定义一个人”的说法，而56%坦承认识使用非传统代词的人——在28—34岁的受访者中，这一比例达43%。如此说来，代词似乎也不属于封闭词类了。

（译者单位：北京语言大学）