Talk:their

Grammatical terminology

I've replaced "possessive adjective" with "possessive determiner" in line with current descriptions of English grammar. A determiner is a category to which "the" and "a" also belong and "their" can take their place whereas it cannot take the place of true adjectives such as "red" in phrases like "the red car" and cannot be made into comparative and superlative forms. Another old way of categorizing these words was as "possessive pronoun" but this term is now reserved for words which directly stand in for a noun such as "theirs" whereas "their" qualifies or, more specifically, determines a noun. Hippietrail 05:56, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I've changed it to pronoun. Even though I'm all in favour of determiners, traditional grammar is correct in identifying these as pronouns.--BrettR 01:03, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Spanish

My Spanish is not perfect but I'm pretty sure "suyo" and "suya" translate "theirs" and not "their" and that the only translations for "their" are "su" and "sus" (for the plural). Hippietrail 05:56, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

True; added "sus" here and moved "suy[oa]s?" to theirs. Eric, 6 April 2005

Removed notes

I have removed the following two notes from the translation table. Whoever is interested may still move them to the respective articles. --Daniel Polansky 11:02, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Note: In standard Finnish, both the possessive suffix and the genitive of the personal pronoun are compulsory. In colloquial Finnish, usually only heidän (or its colloquial or dialectal variants, e.g. heiän) is used.

(if owners are animals or inanimate things) niiden (genitive of ne) (no possessive suffix appended to the main word if the thing that is in English "their ..." is the subject of the clause)

Gender-neutral alternative to his/her

Is it appropriate to document its usage as a Gender-neutral alternative to 'his'? example

Same question here. As a non-native speaker I always thought it could only be used as a possessive plural form. As it is also used in MediaWiki now, I would love to know the Truth^TM about it. Siebrand 08:11, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

They/their is certainly used in English. I have no idea if it is considered "correct," although I suppose that would depend on whom you ask. It is fairly widespread, in any case. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 08:29, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

 Done This is covered. Equinox ◑ 18:14, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

RFC discussion: May 2007–June 2010

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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their

The grammatical notes in the translation tables are too discursive to fit comfortably. These need to be moved to the pages for the translations themselves. (I'd do this myself but I don't have time right now.) — Paul G 12:45, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

In fact all the pronouns need a serious going-over. This is planned as one of my major summer projects when I'll have more time (in about two or three weeks). --EncycloPetey 15:17, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Which summer? (;-)) DCDuring TALK 16:05, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

animateness-neutral

The House of Representatives shall chuse their [modernly, its] Speaker. 
U.S. Const. art. I, § 2.

Wouldn't the use of its here be animateness-neutral, as opposed to *their*? --Backinstadiums (talk) 18:08, 23 December 2019 (UTC)