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The recent history of human impersonal pronouns:
A corpus study
Florian Haas
Institut für Anglistik/Amerikanistik, FSU Jena
26 August 2014
The recent history of human impersonal pronouns: A corpus study
Human impersonal pronouns

The term ‘human impersonal pronoun’ (HIP) refers to
constructions with a non-referential human argument, such as
certain uses of the English expressions one, you and they in
sentences like You/One live(s) only once or They have raised the
taxes again, whereby some typically non-specific, and often
generic, participant is introduced.
We distinguish two basic types of impersonal reference (cf. e.g.

Andersson 1972: 2-3; Siewierska & Papastathi 2011: 581):
1 Existential (cf. 1)
2 Universal (cf. 2)
(1) They stole my bike.

(2) One only lives once.
Objectives
Goal of the (ongoing) study

Describe and explain changes in the system of HIPs throughout
the (esp. more recent) history of English on the basis of diachronic
corpus data.
State of the art
Previous research
Work on the typology of impersonal reference: e.g. Gast and

van der Auwera (2013); van der Auwera, Gast & Vanderbiesen
(2012); Siewierska and Papastathi (2011).
Work on functional differences between English (and other)
HIPs: e.g. Deringer, Gast, Haas & Rudolf (submitted);
Stirling and Manderson (2011); Bolinger (1979).
State of the art
Previous research
Surprisingly little has been written on impersonal pronouns in

classic historical works on English/Germanic pronouns and English
grammar:
Visser, F. Th. (1963) — some comments and data on man
Jespersen, O. (1927) — despite a long section on the uses of
one, the impersonal use is not even mentioned
Howe, S. (1996). The Personal Pronouns in the Germanic
Languages. Berlin: de Gruyter. — nothing
Einenkel, E. (1903). Das englische Indefinitum. Anglia 26:
461-572. — nothing
Mustanoja, T. (1960). A Middle English Syntax. Helsinki:
Soc. Neoph. — some remarks
Rissanen M. (1967). The Uses of One in Old and Early
Middle English. Helsinki: Soc. Neoph. — some information
on impersonal one
State of the art
Previous research
Fortunately, there’s the University of Zurich!

Fröhlich, Jürg (1951). Der indefinite Agens im Altenglischen
unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Wortes man.
Winterthur-Töß: Paul Gehring.
Meier, Hans Heinrich (1953). Der indefinite Agens im
Mittelenglischen (1050-1350). Wörter und Wendungen für
man. Bern: Francke.
Jud-Schmid, Elisabeth (1956). Der indefinite Agens von
Chaucer bis Shakespeare. Die Wörter für man. Meisenheim
am Glan: Anton Hain.
State of the art
Man
English had an impersonal pronoun man/men/me, later

men/me (not a PL of man, Rissanen 1997: 517-521). In OE
and ME, it was the most frequent impersonal strategy.
(3) Her onginneþ seo boc þ man Orosius nemneþ

here begins that book that imps Orosius calls
‘Here begins the book that is called Orosius.’ [Orosius, 1]
(4) a. Swa þatt me þe quemen
so that imps you please.sbj
‘so that me may please thee.’ [Old English Homilies
2.27.18]
b. Der man nu nemnaD Certicesford
there imps now named.pl Charford
‘[. . . ] which was now called Charford.’ [The
Peterborough Chronicle, 519, 1121-1154]
State of the art
Man
This pronoun became obsolete in the course of the 15th cent

(men/me later than man). Possible reasons: The role of
gender, religious aspects of the meaning of man ‘mankind’,
which was competing with the impersonal use (Marchand
1937), homophony with other pronouns (Meier 1953,
Jud-Schmid 1956), or the lack of an unambiguous
non-reduced variant (Jud-Schmid 1956: 110-112).
Later, the plural form men had a short revival (Meyer 1953:
184-186; Rissanen 1997: 519-521), as an independent
development and not as a strong form of me.
State of the art
Man
This pronoun became obsolete in the course of the 15th cent

(men/me later than man). Possible reasons: The role of
gender, religious aspects of the meaning of man ‘mankind’,
which was competing with the impersonal use (Marchand
1937), homophony with other pronouns (Meier 1953,
Jud-Schmid 1956), or the lack of an unambiguous
non-reduced variant (Jud-Schmid 1956: 110-112).
Later, the plural form men had a short revival (Meyer 1953:
184-186; Rissanen 1997: 519-521), as an independent
development and not as a strong form of me.
State of the art
One
One developed its impersonal use in the course of the ME

period (first attested around 1420; there are no instances in
OE and ME; cf. Meyer 1953: 6, 36), becoming common in
eModE. The role of French influence is controversial
(Jud-Schmid 1956; Mustanoja 1960: 224; Rissanen 1967:
67-68).
The impersonal use developed from existential quantifier uses
(‘someone’) of the expression. These are already attested in
the 14th cent.
(5) Doo thus from be to be; thus wol thai lede oon to thair
dwellyng place. [Palladius on Husbondrie, 1420; cf. Meyer
1953: 38]
State of the art
One
One developed its impersonal use in the course of the ME

period (first attested around 1420; there are no instances in
OE and ME; cf. Meyer 1953: 6, 36), becoming common in
eModE. The role of French influence is controversial
(Jud-Schmid 1956; Mustanoja 1960: 224; Rissanen 1967:
67-68).
The impersonal use developed from existential quantifier uses
(‘someone’) of the expression. These are already attested in
the 14th cent.
(6) Doo thus from be to be; thus wol thai lede oon to thair
dwellyng place. [Palladius on Husbondrie, 1420; cf. Meyer
1953: 38]
State of the art
They, People
Apart from one, other impersonal expressions became more

common in eModE, as well: they, folk (mostly as object; since
the 17th cent. folks), later people.
“At the end of the ME period and in early ModE the use of
they for the indefinite person gains ground rapidly. [. . . ] in
the 15th and 16th centuries indefinite man, as a rule, is
replaced by they or one.” (Mustanoja 1960: 226)
State of the art
They, People
Apart from one, other impersonal expressions became more

common in eModE, as well: they, folk (mostly as object; since
the 17th cent. folks), later people.
“At the end of the ME period and in early ModE the use of
they for the indefinite person gains ground rapidly. [. . . ] in
the 15th and 16th centuries indefinite man, as a rule, is
replaced by they or one.” (Mustanoja 1960: 226)
State of the art
You
The 2nd pers. sg. pronoun (thou and later you) also became
more frequent (some examples in early ME, more common in
late ME and early ModE, but one still dominates; cf.
Jud-Schmid 1956: 84,95).
(7) Euerich þing may losen his godhed Mid

every thing may lose his value with
vnmeþe and ouerdede: Mid este þu
lack.of.moderation and restraint with indulgence you
þe maist ouerquatie & ouerfulle makieþ
you.obj may oversaturate and glut makes
wlatie.
annoy
‘Everything can lose its value through lack of moderation
and restraint. You can glut yourself with pleasure, and
surfeit makes you sick’ [The Owl and the Nightingale,
351-354]
More recent changes
What this study is about
1 Bridging the gap between the available documentation of

impersonal constructions in Old and Middle English, on the
one hand, and what we know about HIPs in Present-day
English.
2 Given that man/men/me was a highly frequent all-purpose
HIP in earlier English, one/you/we would expect a
reorganization of the remaining (and new) HIPs and their
usage conditions.
More recent changes
What this study is about
1 Bridging the gap between the available documentation of

impersonal constructions in Old and Middle English, on the
one hand, and what we know about HIPs in Present-day
English.
2 Given that man/men/me was a highly frequent all-purpose
HIP in earlier English, one/you/we would expect a
reorganization of the remaining (and new) HIPs and their
usage conditions.
More recent changes
The corpus
The corpus
ARCHER (A Representative Corpus of Historical English
Registers), version 3.1 (2006), is a representative diachronic corpus
covering texts from 1650 to Present-day English.
674 files
ca. 1.3 million words
Registers: drama, fiction, sermons, journals, medicine, news,
science, letters
divided into 50 year periods: (1600-49 (1)), 1650-99 (2),
1700-49 (3), 1750-99 (4), 1800-49 (5), 1850-99 (6), 1900-49
(7), 1950-99 (8)
BrE for all periods, AmE for periods 4, 6 and 8.
Methodology
Extraction
One: 5,355 hits; manual extraction of 279 impersonal uses.

They: 6,952 hits; manual extraction of 517 impersonal uses.
You: 16,652 hits; manual extraction of 471 impersonal uses.
People: 1,118 hits, manual extraction of 146 impersonal uses.
Methodology
Coding of the data
1 Year
2 Genre
3 Period
4 Variety: American, British
5 Syntactic function: subj., obj., poss., passive subj.
6 Verb
7 Verb class: cognition, communication, other
8 Inclusion of hearer: true, false
9 Genericity: generalizing, episodic
10 Veridicality: veridical, non-veridical
11 Combination with modals: modal, non-modal
12 Clause type
13 Self-reference: true, false
14 Quantification: universal, existential
15 Perspective: internal, external
Observations
You
Impersonal you is still rare in Period 2 (1650-1699), becoming

more common in Periods 5 and 6. It has replaced one as the
default strategy for generalizing contexts.
In this context, the role of the passive has to be considered,
too. Although generally it has always been a stylistically
marked choice, it has been (tentatively) noted that in late ME
passives became more common in impersonal contexts (cf.
Jud-Schmid 1956: 93-94).
For the present study, passives have not yet been analyzed.
Observations
X2 = 84.52212, d.f. = 18, p = 1.369736e-10

Observations
X2 = 35.19017, d.f. = 6, p = 3.95888e-06

Observations
They
Impersonal they is already relatively common in the earlier

periods. In Period 2 it often combines with communication
verbs like say and write to form a construction with a very
specific function (in contrast to people, which has always been
uncommon with such verbs):
(8) a. From Naples they continue to tell us, of the great

want of Corne that the Kingdom is at present in.
[1672, News]
b. They write from Berlin that the new Levies go on very
successfully. [1697, News]
Observations
X2 = 19.02398, d.f. = 6, p = 0.004123333

Back to YOU
Back to YOU
We saw that impersonal you became more frequent in the periods

covered by ARCHER, even long after man was no longer a
competitor. Are there other factors that motivate its increasing
popularity?
Similar changes in other languages, possibly linked to cultural
changes.
Coveney (2003) on French; Jensen (2009) and Nielsen,
Fogtmann Fosgerau & Jensen (2009) on Danish.
Back to YOU
Back to YOU
We saw that impersonal you became more frequent in the periods

covered by ARCHER, even long after man was no longer a
competitor. Are there other factors that motivate its increasing
popularity?
Similar changes in other languages, possibly linked to cultural
changes.
Coveney (2003) on French; Jensen (2009) and Nielsen,
Fogtmann Fosgerau & Jensen (2009) on Danish.
Back to YOU
Competition between on and tu/vous in French (Coveney 2003)

Impersonal uses of the 2pers. pronoun tu/vous were
uncommon before the 20th cent.; it is described as a ‘modern
feature’.
In recent decades it has become much more popular,
especially in Canada, but also in France.
Back to YOU

feature’.
Back to YOU

feature’.
Back to YOU
Competition between man and du in Danish (Jensen 2009; Nielsen

et al. 2009)
1 Impersonal du has been in use for several decades, more
frequently in the second half of the 20th century, spreading
from Copenhagen to the rest of the country.
2 “[G]eneric du is a resource for showing something as opposed
to telling about that something.” (Nielsen et al. 2009) Du
has “the interpersonal potential of construing involvement”
and its frequent co-occurence with the present tense (unlike
man) should be interpreted in terms of ‘enactment’.
3 Nielsen et al. (2009) speculate that “there is a linkage
between the rise of generic du and the issue of intimacy [. . . ]
the intimization processes may be urban phenomena spreading
from Copenhagen to the rest of the country.”
Back to YOU

et al. 2009)
Back to YOU

et al. 2009)
Back to YOU

et al. 2009)
Back to YOU
Simulation and self-reference
Changes in the usage of you in English:

1 “Hidden” reference to the speaker in generalizing/universal
contexts; cf. (9) and any interview with football players.
2 Simulation, i.e. cases where the hearer is not a member of the
group generalized over; cf. (10) and Deringer, Gast, Haas &
Rudolf (submitted) and Stirling & Manderson (2011) for an
account in terms of empathy.
Back to YOU
(9) Hard to find any place to work now where people don’t
bother you and will let you work. [1961, Letters]
(10) The windpipe closes; in fact, the hangman has you by the
throat each ten or twenty minutes, you are a merry
Gallows’ bird. And to be waked up at night by a seizure, is
akin to the dark archangel’s intimation to you to prepare
for immediate flight. [1879, Letters]
Back to YOU
X2 = 44.82801, d.f. = 6, p = 5.063301e-08

Back to YOU
X2 = 9.706049, d.f. = 2, p = 0.007804737

Back to YOU
X2 = 54.33389, d.f. = 6, p = 6.317467e-10

Back to YOU
X2 = 5.233434, d.f. = 2, p = 0.07304227

Conclusions
Conclusions I
1 The reorganization of human impersonal pronouns in

English did not stop before 1650.
2 In earlier periods, impersonal they was part of a now
extinct construction in the news genre (They write from
Paris that. . . ). This may have strengthened the general
use of they in ‘collective/corporate’ contexts, i.e.
reference to unidentified members of a known group
(They have raised the taxes.).
3 After the demise of man (and related forms), impersonal
you has been gaining in popularity.
4 Especially in more recent years it has become a welcome
alternative to the more formal one.
Conclusions
Conclusions II
5 Changes in two (related) pragmatic functions of you could

also be observed:
The rhetorical strategy of generalizing away from one’s own
experience/responsibility – “self-reference” has become more
frequent.
Inviting the hearer to simulate being member of a group
(probably presupposing empathy of the hearer towards that
group) – “simulation” has become more frequent.
6 The interesting question of whether the latter change can
be related to extra-linguistic developments, as has been
suggested for other languages, needs to be explored in
more detail.
Conclusions
Thanks for your attention!

References
Andersson, Lars-Gunnar. 1972. Man-ett pronomen. Gothenburg Papers in Theoretical Linguistics 15:1-23.
van der Auwera, Johan, Volker Gast, and Jeroen Vanderbiesen. 2012. Human impersonal pronouns in English,
Dutch and German. Leuvense Bijdragen 98:27–64.
Beck Nielsen, Søren, Christina Fogtmann Fosgerau, and Torben Juel Jensen. 2009. From community to
conversation and back. Exploring the interpersonal potentials of two generic pronouns in Danish. Acta
Linguistica Hafniensia 41:116–142.
Bolinger, Dwight. 1979. To catch a metaphor: you as norm. American Speech 54:194–209.
Coveney, Aidan. 2003. ‘Anything you can do, tu can do better.’ tu and vous as substitutes for indefinite on in
French. Journal of Sociolinguistics 7:164-191.
Deringer, Lisa, Volker Gast, Florian Haas, and Olga Rudolf. submitted. Impersonal uses of the second person
singular: An exploratory corpus study of English, German and Russian.
Einenkel, Eugen. 1903. Das englische Indefinitum. Anglia 26:461-572.
Fröhlich, Jürg. 1951. Der indefinite Agens im Altenglischen unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Wortes man.
Winterthur-Töß: Paul Gehring.
Howe, Stephen. 1996. The Personal Pronouns in the Germanic Languages. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Gast, Volker and Johan van der Auwera. 2013. Towards a distributional typology of human impersonal pronouns,
based on data from European languages. Languages across Boundaries: Studies in memory of Anna Siewierska,
ed. Dik Bakker and Martin Haspelmath, 119–158. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Jensen, Torben Juel. 2009. Generic variation? Developments in use of generic pronouns in late 20th century
spoken Danish. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 41:83–115.
Jespersen, Otto. 1927. A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.
Jud-Schmid, Elisabeth. 1956. Der indefinite Agens von Chaucer bis Shakespeare: Die Wörter für man.
Meisenheim am Glan: Anton Hain.
References
Marchand, Hans. 1937. Indefinite Pronoun one. Publications de la faculté des lettres de l’Universit é d’Istanbul
1:134-152.
Meier, Hans Heinrich. 1953. Der indefinite Agens im Mittelenglischen (1050-1350): Wörter und Wendungen für
man. Bern: Francke.
Mustanoja, Tauno F. 1960. A Middle English Syntax. Helsinki: Société. Neophilologique.
Rissanen, Matti. 1967. The Uses of One in Old and Early Middle English. Helsinki: Société. Neophilologique.
Rissanen, Matti. 1997. Whatever happened to the Middle English indefinite pronouns? Studies in Middle English
Linguistics, ed. Jacek Fisiak, 513-529, Berlin: de Gruyter.
Siewierska, Anna, and Maria Papastathi. 2011. Towards a typology of third-person plural impersonals. Linguistics
49:575–610.
Stirling, Lesley, and Lenore Manderson. 2011. About you: Empathy, objectivity and authority. Journal of
Pragmatics 43:1581–1602.
Visser, F. Th. 1963. An Historical Syntax of the English Language. Part 1: Syntactical Units with One Verb.
Leiden: Brill.

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The recent history of human impersonal pronouns:

Institut für Anglistik/Amerikanistik, FSU Jena

Human impersonal pronouns

We distinguish two basic types of impersonal reference (cf. e.g.

(1) They stole my bike.

Goal of the (ongoing) study

Work on the typology of impersonal reference: e.g. Gast and

Surprisingly little has been written on impersonal pronouns in

Fortunately, there’s the University of Zurich!

English had an impersonal pronoun man/men/me, later

(3) Her onginneþ seo boc þ man Orosius nemneþ

This pronoun became obsolete in the course of the 15th cent

This pronoun became obsolete in the course of the 15th cent

One developed its impersonal use in the course of the ME

One developed its impersonal use in the course of the ME

Apart from one, other impersonal expressions became more

Apart from one, other impersonal expressions became more

(7) Euerich þing may losen his godhed Mid

What this study is about

1 Bridging the gap between the available documentation of

What this study is about

1 Bridging the gap between the available documentation of

One: 5,355 hits; manual extraction of 279 impersonal uses.

Impersonal you is still rare in Period 2 (1650-1699), becoming

X2 = 84.52212, d.f. = 18, p = 1.369736e-10

X2 = 35.19017, d.f. = 6, p = 3.95888e-06

Impersonal they is already relatively common in the earlier

(8) a. From Naples they continue to tell us, of the great

X2 = 19.02398, d.f. = 6, p = 0.004123333

We saw that impersonal you became more frequent in the periods

We saw that impersonal you became more frequent in the periods

Competition between on and tu/vous in French (Coveney 2003)

Competition between on and tu/vous in French (Coveney 2003)

Competition between on and tu/vous in French (Coveney 2003)

Competition between man and du in Danish (Jensen 2009; Nielsen

Competition between man and du in Danish (Jensen 2009; Nielsen

Competition between man and du in Danish (Jensen 2009; Nielsen

Competition between man and du in Danish (Jensen 2009; Nielsen

Simulation and self-reference

Changes in the usage of you in English:

X2 = 44.82801, d.f. = 6, p = 5.063301e-08

X2 = 9.706049, d.f. = 2, p = 0.007804737

X2 = 54.33389, d.f. = 6, p = 6.317467e-10

X2 = 5.233434, d.f. = 2, p = 0.07304227

1 The reorganization of human impersonal pronouns in

5 Changes in two (related) pragmatic functions of you could

Thanks for your attention!

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