I keep seeing the "chat is a fourth person pronoun" post and it's getting increasingly hard to avoid starting discourse in the notes of it. chat I don't think they know what these linguistics terms they're using mean
it's literally just a noun. the reason it grammatically doesn't feel like it means the same thing as any existing pronoun and must be in a different category is that it's not a pronoun. it's in the same class of word as "gang" or "folks" or "ladies and gentlemen". there's nothing new going on here it's just an ordinary noun being used like a noun.
FAQ
Q: language is fluid, so if enough people use "chat" as a pronoun wouldn't that mean it is a pronoun?
A: yes, but people don't use it as a pronoun so it isn't one.
Q: are you trying to police how people use words?
A: no, I'm describing the ways words are used. if people were actually using "chat" as a pronoun I wouldn't have a problem with someone describing it as a pronoun, because it would be a pronoun.
Q: well maybe I do use "chat" as a pronoun. maybe my pronouns are chat/chats. are you saying I can't do that?
A: no, obviously you can do whatever you want. however, if you did hypothetically use "chat" as a neopronoun, it would be third person, and this isn't even remotely similar to the use case being described as a "fourth person pronoun" by the post I'm talking about.
Q: is "we" a fourth person pronoun?
A: no, it's first person plural.
Q: is "chat" a second person pronoun?
A: no, it's a noun.
Q: is "chat" a vocative?
A: that's a case, not a part of speech. any noun can be "a vocative" in the same way any noun can be an object.
Q: does "chat" mean "y'all"?
A: so close! "y'all" is a pronoun which, being a pronoun, can take the place of a noun in a certain context. "y'all" is second person plural, so if the context "chat" is being used in is that you're talking to a group of people (real or hypothetical) that you're calling "chat", it can be replaced with "y'all". however, this doesn't mean that "chat" and "y'all" are synonyms, that's just a pronoun doing what pronouns do.
Q: everyone who's calling it a fourth person pronoun is joking, so you shouldn't take this so seriously
A: if they're joking in a way that's literally indistinguishable from spreading Real linguistic misinformation the result is the same either way.
official linguistics post
Also worth mentioning: A grammatical 4th person does already exist! Even if chat was a pronoun, it wouldn't be 4th person because that's not what real 4th person means. English doesn't have it, but Nishnaabemwin (The native language of the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Bodewadmi people) does! I took two years of Nishnaabemwin, taught by a native speaker, let me tell you about it!
The 4th person is also referred to as the "Obviate" or as the "second third person". It is less a type of pronoun and more a grammatical tool to distinguish between multiple third persons in a sentence. If you've ever run into the issue in English of having multiple people in a sentence who use the same pronoun, you'll know how confusing it can be. In Nishnaabemwin, when you have multiple distinct third persons in a sentence, you distinguish between the ones who are in 'focus' (the proximate, regular third person) and those who are not (obviative, fourth person). The 4th persons get an -an suffix to mark them as 4th person. 4th person also applies to relations. If I am talking about Fred and mention something about Fred's mom, I'll give his mom the Obviative marker. This is especially useful in storytelling, when you have lots of third persons at once.
This is it as I understand it! If any linguists or native speakers want to add on or correct me on anything feel free!!
