Daniel (my son) – wearing a white tee-shirt; with a logo on the back (detail, not important).
Phillipa: Daniel, what's that on your back?
Daniel: A tee-shirt!
Our D.Phil/M.Phil pragmatics students really need to talk to my son.
Another example, from the other day …
Kate came up to us, just as St. Edward's school was singing at an event called Sound-School.
Kate: Is this St. Edward's school singing now?
Daniel: Yes.
Kate: What year is it?
Daniel: 2004!
Now, if Kate had said 'What year are THEY', Daniel would have certainly realised exactly what question was being asked. However, while THEY is somewhat a more polite term for a group of people (perhaps); IT, used as a collective-noun thingmy, is also perfectly grammatical.
All of this gets my thoughts turning back to my D.Phil project - and it gives me a headache just thinking about it all again. I mean, if Daniel didn't get it, how on earth would a machine (although the context in both cases is actually pretty straight forward)? On the other hand, to 'get it', just think about what a machine would have to know about the universe - and how people might refer to things in it!