Unlocking Pronouns解鎖代詞

約翰遜

Personal pronouns have been hard to alter. That is now changing fast. 人稱代詞：從一成不變到日新月異。

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，一名男子還會因與同性發生性關系而在得克薩斯州鋃鐺入獄。2015年，肯塔基州某縣一牧師因拒絕為兩名男子證婚而被判入獄。從2003年勞倫斯訴得克薩斯州一案迫使最高法院廢除雞奸法，到2015年奧貝格費爾訴霍奇斯一案使得同性婚姻在全美合法化，美國法律正以驚人的速度賦予同性戀各種權利。

變性人的權利問題繼而進入了公眾視野。一檔名為《透明家庭》的電視節目風靡美國。該節目將變性人置于錯綜復雜的世界的中心。節目邀請了凱特琳·詹納擔任嘉賓。變性前“她”是布魯斯·詹納，獲得過奧運會金牌?！八钡某霈F不僅讓人們意識到變性人的存在，更讓人們開始接受他們。在開明人士看來，在公開場合對跨性別表現出恐懼，正如對同性戀表現出恐懼或持種族歧視態度一樣，越來越讓人難以接受，只是人們對跨性的接受更快。

隨著性和性別觀念的改變，“非二元性別者”走向性別權利革命的前沿也就不足為奇了。英語語法成為這場革命的陣地之一，同性戀的權利問題也引起了語言上一個小小的變化?，F在，人們對“史蒂夫的丈夫”這種稱呼已經習以為常。然而，對變性者以禮相待，還需在語言上另作調整：互換“他”和“她”，學會稱呼變性后的新名字，摒棄變性前的老名字。

然而，“非二元性別者”的身份可以是無性人、雙性人或性別不定等。他們要求英語從本質上做出改變。他們中的很多人呼吁人們在稱呼他們時使用新造的代詞（如ey或ze）或者比較常用的代詞they。

語言學家表示，這樣做對很多人來說并不容易，因為代詞屬于“封閉”詞類，形容詞、名詞和動詞則屬于“開放”詞類，可隨意創造。倘若告訴小孩，有一種鳥叫wug，他們不僅會立刻接受wug這種鳥的存在，還能通過所學語法判斷其復數必定為wugs。相比之下，成年人興許會更保守些，盡管他們會拒用不喜歡的詞，卻也不斷接納新名詞、新動詞。名詞、動詞和形容詞歷經久遠，含義會發生改變，這也是常有之事。歷經若干世紀而仍能保留其原有含義的詞，可謂寥寥無幾，例如，buxom一詞原本意為“順從的”，而今則是“豐滿的;健美的”的意思。

然而，語法直覺會因納入新造代詞而遭受深切沖擊，從而導致像ze這樣的新造代詞未能得到廣泛使用。單數they則不同。they來自古英語。與人們通常持有的錯誤觀念相反，they的先行詞可以是單數，比如可以說someone left their umbrella here。避免表述成someone left his umbrella并非是對現代女權的讓步。這種改變可以追溯到14世紀，自那以來，很多優秀的文學作品中都可以看到這種用法。

但they的這種用法非同尋常：傳統上，它只能指代不定先行詞。例如，a student must have left their umbrella不會引發爭議。然而，Steve must have left their umbrella聽起來就很刺耳。my best friend must have left their umbrella這句話也是如此：聽者不清楚這位好友的性別，說話者大概應該心中有數。因此，“非二元性別者”呼吁人們用they稱呼他們，這就跟說Taylor left their umbrella一樣，與許多聽者心中根深蒂固的語法規則背道而馳。

但是這種語法規則到底有多根深蒂固呢？紐卡斯爾大學的研究員勞倫·阿克曼對此做了一個小型研究。測試中包括Someone dressed themselves和Chloe dressed themselves這樣的句子。她還將themself放入了測試句子中。研究請40個人對這些句子的“自然程度”評級。結果顯示：沒有幾個受試者接受不了Someone dressed themselves這句話;而與阿克曼女士的預設相反的是，對Chloe dressed themselves這句話，評級涵蓋了各個級別。此外，阿克曼女士還發現，經常與變性人互動的9位受試者對這句話的接受度高于平均值，而且，互動越頻繁，接受度越高。

此項研究囿于規模，無法得出確切的結論。正如學者們總是掛在嘴上的那句話：尚需更多研究。但毋庸置疑，相關研究已經啟動了。這與一個日益深入的信念緊密相關，即性別二元屬于社會建構。2016年的一項民意調查顯示，13—20歲的“Z世代”中，大多數（78%）認同諸如“性別不再像過往那樣定義一個人”的說法，而56%坦承認識使用非傳統代詞的人——在28—34歲的受訪者中，這一比例達43%。如此說來，代詞似乎也不屬于封閉詞類了。

（譯者單位：北京語言大學）