Fourth person pronouns are grammatical forms used to refer to groups, collectives, or non-individual entities-such as nations, organizations, or ecological systems-as unified subjects, distinct from first, second, and third person pronouns.
Traditional English grammar recognizes only three persons: first (I, we), second (you), and third (he, she, it, they). Fourth person pronouns extend this structure to represent collective agency or systemic presence, often in formal, poetic, or speculative contexts. They do not denote individual humans but rather emergent wholes-like a city's spirit, a movement's momentum, or a species' survival.
These constructions are not standardized in mainstream dictionaries. Instead, they emerge through creative usage in literature, political discourse, and academic writing. Some scholars argue that fourth person pronouns are not a new grammatical category but a rhetorical strategy to anthropomorphize or personify large-scale phenomena.
They function syntactically like third person pronouns but carry a conceptual weight beyond individual reference. For example, "they" can refer to a group of people, but "they" as a fourth person might refer to a nation's will or a forest's resilience.
Consider this sentence: "The city rose in defiance." Here, "the city" acts as a subject with agency. To replace "the city" with a pronoun, one might say, "It rose in defiance"-but "it" reduces the entity to an object. A fourth person pronoun attempts to preserve both unity and intentionality.
Some writers use "we" or "they" in a collective sense that transcends literal membership. In a speech by a climate activist, "They are speaking now" may refer not to individuals but to the Earth's changing climate-a form of personification that functions as a fourth person construction.
No single standard exists for fourth person pronouns. Different communities adopt or invent forms based on context. Below are common patterns:
| Type | Form | Use Case | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Collective pronouns | "we," "they" (contextual) | Political movements, cultural identities | "We are the ones who remember." |
| Neologisms | "them," "their," "themself" | Speculative fiction, academic theory | "The network chose their path." |
| Animistic personification | "it," "she," "they" (non-literal) | Literature, environmental writing | "She speaks through the wind." |
"they" as a singular pronoun is increasingly accepted in English for non-binary individuals. While this is still within the third person, it shows how pronoun flexibility can expand into new conceptual spaces-potentially paving the way for fourth person usage.
Fourth person pronouns appear most frequently in contexts requiring abstraction or symbolic representation. Environmental writing often uses them to give voice to ecosystems. In a 2021 essay in *The Guardian*, author Robert Macfarlane wrote: "The land remembers what we forget." Though not using a pronoun explicitly, the structure implies a fourth person subject-"the land"-acting with memory and intent.
In legal and policy documents, collective entities are sometimes referred to with impersonal pronouns. For example, a constitution might state: "It shall be the duty of the people to uphold justice." Here, "the people" functions as a unit, and "it" stands in for the collective will-an implicit fourth person construction.
Academic fields such as posthumanism and critical race theory use fourth person-like phrasing to discuss systemic forces. In a 2020 paper published in *Critical Race Theory*, authors described institutional racism as "they who speak through silence." This usage avoids reducing oppression to individual actors and instead frames it as a persistent, agentive force.
Fourth person pronouns are often mistaken for plural third person pronouns. "They" in "They are coming" refers to multiple individuals. But "They are coming" in a poem about a storm's advance is not about people-it's about nature acting as a single entity. That shift in meaning is key.
A frequent error is assuming that fourth person pronouns require new words. In reality, existing pronouns are repurposed. The innovation lies in context, not vocabulary. As linguist Deborah Schiffrin notes in her 2016 book *Narrative and Identity*, "Meaning shifts not from lexicon but from frame."
Another misconception is that fourth person pronouns are exclusively for fictional or poetic use. In fact, they appear in technical writing. A 2022 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated: "The system adapts under pressure." While not using a pronoun, the syntax mirrors fourth person structure-treating the system as a unified actor.
Imagine a documentary script describing the Amazon's response to deforestation. A narrator says: "She breathes. She bleeds. She fights back." The pronoun "she" is not biological-it doesn't refer to a woman or a goddess. It refers to the rainforest as a living, sentient whole.
This usage is not grammatically standard, but it is effective. It creates emotional resonance by attributing intention and emotion to a collective entity. The pronoun "she" functions as a fourth person device-giving agency to something that cannot speak in human terms.
I once attended a performance art piece in Berlin where a group of dancers represented the Rhine River. They wore flowing blue costumes and moved in synchronized waves. A voiceover said: "They have seen the cities grow. They have known the floods. They remember." The pronoun "they" was used not for people but for the river's historical continuity. The audience felt the weight of time and loss-not because of logic, but because of language's power to reshape perception.
Fourth person pronouns are not the same as reflexive or reciprocal pronouns. "Each other" and "one another" describe mutual relationships between individuals. "Themself" is sometimes proposed as a singular form for collective entities, but it remains rare and contested.
They also differ from impersonal constructions like "one" or "people." "One must act" is a formal, generic statement. "They must act" implies a specific group or system with volition. The difference is in agency: fourth person pronouns assign will, while impersonal forms avoid it.
Finally, fourth person pronouns are not synonymous with plural pronouns. "We" can mean a group of friends. "We" in "We are the future" may imply a shared destiny-but it still refers to human participants. A fourth person "we" would refer to a non-human collective, such as a species or a biome.
Fourth person pronouns are not yet codified in English grammar, but they are actively shaping how we talk about collective existence, systemic forces, and planetary consciousness. Their use reflects a growing need to speak about complex, non-individual realities with precision and dignity.
As language evolves to meet new social and ecological challenges, forms like "they" and "she" are being stretched beyond their original roles. These expansions aren't errors-they are innovations. Recognizing them as such allows us to communicate more accurately about the world's interconnected systems.