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''One'' is an
English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...
,
gender-neutral Gender neutrality (adjective form: gender-neutral), also known as gender-neutralism or the gender neutrality movement, is the idea that policies, language, and other social institutions ( social structures or gender roles) should avoid disting ...
,
indefinite pronoun An indefinite pronoun is a pronoun which does not have a specific familiar referent. Indefinite pronouns are in contrast to definite pronouns. Indefinite pronouns can represent either count nouns or noncount nouns. They often have related form ...
that means, roughly, "a person". For purposes of verb agreement it is a third-person singular pronoun, though it sometimes appears with first- or second-person reference. It is sometimes called an impersonal pronoun. It is more or less equivalent to the Scots "a body", the French pronoun '' on'', the
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
/
Scandinavia Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and S ...
n ''man'', and the
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
''uno''. It can take the
possessive A possessive or ktetic form ( abbreviated or ; from la, possessivus; grc, κτητικός, translit=ktētikós) is a word or grammatical construction used to indicate a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict ow ...
form ''one's'' and the reflexive form ''oneself'', or it can adopt those forms from the
generic he A third-person pronoun is a pronoun that refers to an entity other than the speaker or listener. Some languages with gender-specific pronouns have them as part of a grammatical gender system, a system of agreement where most or all nouns have a ...
with ''his'' and ''himself''. The pronoun ''one'' often has connotations of formality, and is often avoided in favour of more colloquial alternatives such as generic ''you''.


Morphology

In
Standard Standard may refer to: Symbols * Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs * Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification Norms, conventions or requirements * Standard (metrology), an object th ...
Modern English, pronoun ''one'' has three shapes representing five distinct word
forms Form is the shape, visual appearance, or configuration of an object. In a wider sense, the form is the way something happens. Form also refers to: *Form (document), a document (printed or electronic) with spaces in which to write or enter data * ...
: * ''one'': the
nominative In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Eng ...
(subjective) and
accusative The accusative case ( abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘ ...
(objective, also known as
oblique case In grammar, an oblique ( abbreviated ; from la, casus obliquus) or objective case (abbr. ) is a nominal case other than the nominative case, and sometimes, the vocative. A noun or pronoun in the oblique case can generally appear in any role ex ...
) forms * ''one's:'' the dependent and independent
genitive In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can a ...
(possessive) forms **Unlike the possessive forms of
personal pronouns Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', ''they''). Personal pronouns may also take dif ...
and ''
who Who or WHO may refer to: * Who (pronoun), an interrogative or relative pronoun * Who?, one of the Five Ws in journalism * World Health Organization Arts and entertainment Fictional characters * Who, a creature in the Dr. Seuss book '' Horton He ...
'' (''its'', ''hers'', ''whose,'' etc.), ''one's'' is written with the
apostrophe The apostrophe ( or ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes: * The marking of the omission of one ...
. * ''oneself'': the reflexive form


History

The word ''one'' developed from Old English , itself from Proto-Germanic , from PIE root ', but it was not originally a pronoun. Pronoun ''one'' may have come into use as an imitation of French beginning in the 15th century."One", entry in ''The Oxford English Dictionary'', second edition, edited by John Simpson and Edmund Weiner, Clarendon Press, 1989, twenty volumes, hardcover, . ''One's self'' appears in the mid 1500s, and is written as one word from about 1827.


Confusion with other categories


Pronoun vs pro-form

There is a pronoun ''one'', but there is also a
noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, ...
and a
determiner A determiner, also called determinative ( abbreviated ), is a word, phrase, or affix that occurs together with a noun or noun phrase and generally serves to express the reference of that noun or noun phrase in the context. That is, a determine ...
that are often called pronouns because they function as pro-forms. Pronoun is a category of words (a "part of speech"). A
pro-form In linguistics, a pro-form is a type of function word or expression that stands in for (expresses the same content as) another word, phrase, clause or sentence where the meaning is recoverable from the context. They are used either to avoid rep ...
is a function of a word or phrase that stands in for (expresses the same content as) another, where the meaning is recoverable from the context. In English, pronouns mostly function as pro-forms, but there are pronouns that are not pro-forms and pro-forms that are not pronouns. Examples & 2show pronouns and pro-forms. In the pronoun one "stands in" for "a / the person". In the
relative pronoun A relative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative clause. It serves the purpose of conjoining modifying information about an antecedent referent. An example is the word ''which'' in the sentence "This is the house which Jack built." Here the r ...
''
who Who or WHO may refer to: * Who (pronoun), an interrogative or relative pronoun * Who?, one of the Five Ws in journalism * World Health Organization Arts and entertainment Fictional characters * Who, a creature in the Dr. Seuss book '' Horton He ...
'' stands in for "the people". Examples & 4show pronouns but not pro-forms. In the
interrogative pronoun An interrogative word or question word is a function word used to ask a question, such as ''what, which'', ''when'', ''where'', '' who, whom, whose'', ''why'', ''whether'' and ''how''. They are sometimes called wh-words, because in English most o ...
''who'' does not stand in for anything. Similarly, in ''it'' is a
dummy pronoun A dummy pronoun is a deictic pronoun that fulfills a syntactical requirement without providing a contextually explicit meaning of its referent. As such, it is an example of exophora. Dummy pronouns are used in many Germanic languages, inclu ...
, one that does not stand in for anything. No other word can function there with the same meaning; we do not say "the sky is raining" or "the weather is raining". Examples –7show pro-forms that are not pronouns. In ''did so'' is a
verb phrase In linguistics, a verb phrase (VP) is a syntactic unit composed of a verb and its arguments except the subject of an independent clause or coordinate clause. Thus, in the sentence ''A fat man quickly put the money into the box'', the words ''q ...
, but it stands in for "helped". Similarly, in ''others'' is a common noun, not a pronoun, but ''the others'' stands in for this list of names of the other people involved (e.g., ''Sho, Alana, and Ali''). And in ''one'' is a common noun. This should be clear because, unlike pronouns, it readily takes a determiner (''two'') and an
adjective phrase An adjective phrase (or adjectival phrase) is a phrase whose head is an adjective. Almost any grammar or syntax textbook or dictionary of linguistics terminology defines the adjective phrase in a similar way, e.g. Kesner Bland (1996:499), Crystal ( ...
modifier (''small''), and because its plural form is the usual ''-s'' of common nouns. Example is a common noun. It's neither a pronoun nor a pro-form.


Syntax


Functions

''One'' can appear as a subject,
object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ...
,
determiner A determiner, also called determinative ( abbreviated ), is a word, phrase, or affix that occurs together with a noun or noun phrase and generally serves to express the reference of that noun or noun phrase in the context. That is, a determine ...
or predicative complement. The reflexive form also appears as an adjunct. * Subject: ''One cannot help but grow older.'' ''One must pay for oneself to go.'' * Object: ''Drunkenness can make one unreliable''. ''A reputation travels with one. One must help oneself.'' * Predicative complement: ''One need only be oneself.'' * Dependent determiner: ''Being with one's friends is a joy.'' * Independent determiner: (no known examples) ** Such sentences as ''one's is broken''; ''I sat on one's''; ''I broke one's''; etc. are not found. * Adjunct: ''One must do it oneself.'' * Modifier: (no known examples)


Dependents

Pronouns rarely take dependents, and ''one'' is particularly resistant in this respect, though it may have some of the same kind of dependents as other
noun phrases In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head (linguistics), head or performs the same Grammar, grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common linguistic typology, cross-lingui ...
. *
Relative clause A relative clause is a clause that modifies a noun or noun phraseRodney D. Huddleston, Geoffrey K. Pullum, ''A Student's Introduction to English Grammar'', CUP 2005, p. 183ff. and uses some grammatical device to indicate that one of the argument ...
modifier: ''one who knows oneself'' * Determiner: (no known examples) ** An example like the following has the common noun ''one'': ''Man has constructed woman as' the Other', as the one who is not oneself.'' The pronoun has no plural form, but the common noun example could be ''...as the ones who are not oneself''. *
Adjective phrase An adjective phrase (or adjectival phrase) is a phrase whose head is an adjective. Almost any grammar or syntax textbook or dictionary of linguistics terminology defines the adjective phrase in a similar way, e.g. Kesner Bland (1996:499), Crystal ( ...
modifier: (no known examples) *
Adverb phrase In linguistics, an ''adverbial phrase'' ("AdvP") is a multi-word expression operating adverbially: its syntactic function is to modify other expressions, including verbs, adjectives, adverbs, adverbials, and sentences. Adverbial phrases can be div ...
external modifier: ''not even oneself''


Semantics

''One'' generally denotes any single unidentified
person A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...
, or "any person at all, including (esp. in later use) the speaker himself or herself; ‘you, or I, or anyone’; a person in general." It is usually
definite In linguistics, definiteness is a semantic feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between referents or senses that are identifiable in a given context (definite noun phrases) and those which are not (indefinite noun phrases). The prototypical ...
but non- specific,


Royal ''one''

Monarchs, people of higher classes, and particularly Queen
Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states durin ...
during her reign, are often depicted as using ''one'' as a first-person pronoun. This is frequently used as a
caricature A caricature is a rendered image showing the features of its subject in a simplified or exaggerated way through sketching, pencil strokes, or other artistic drawings (compare to: cartoon). Caricatures can be either insulting or complimentary, ...
by the press when they refer to the Queen or senior members of the Royal Family. For example, the headline "One is not amused" is attributed humorously to her, implicitly referencing Queen Victoria's supposed statement " We are not amused," containing instead the royal ''we''. Another example near the end of 1992, which was a difficult year for the British royal family, as the Queen famously quipped "
Annus horribilis (pl. ''anni horribiles'') is a Latin phrase, meaning "horrible year". It is complementary to , which means "wonderful year". Origin of phrase The phrase was used in 1891 in an Anglican publication to describe 1870, the year in which the dogma ...
", the tabloid newspaper ''The Sun'' published a headline, "One's Bum Year!"


Alternatives


For repeated ''one''

In formal English, once a sentence uses the indefinite pronoun ''one'', it must continue to use the same pronoun (or its supplementary forms ''one's'', ''oneself''). It is considered incorrect to replace it with another pronoun such as ''he'' or ''she''. For example: *''One can glean from this whatever one may.'' *''If one were to look at oneself, one's impression would be...'' However, some speakers find this usage overly formal and stilted, and do replace repeated occurrences of ''one'' with a personal pronoun, most commonly the generic ''he'': *''One can glean from this whatever he may.'' *''If one were to look at himself, his impression would be...'' Another reason for inserting a third-person pronoun in this way may sometimes be to underline that ''one'' is not intended to be understood as referring particularly to the listener or to the speaker. A problem with the generic ''he'', however, is that it may not be viewed as
gender-neutral Gender neutrality (adjective form: gender-neutral), also known as gender-neutralism or the gender neutrality movement, is the idea that policies, language, and other social institutions ( social structures or gender roles) should avoid disting ...
; this may sometimes be avoided by using singular ''they'' instead, though some purists view this as ungrammatical (particularly when the question arises of whether its reflexive form should be ''themselves'' or ''themself''). Examples are also found, particularly in the spoken language, where a speaker switches mid-sentence from the use of ''one'' to the generic ''you'' (its informal equivalent, as described in the following section). This type of inconsistency is strongly criticized by language purists.Katie Wales, ''Personal Pronouns in Present-Day English'', CUP 1996, p. 81.


For ''one'' in general

A common and less formal alternative to the indefinite pronoun ''one'' is generic ''you'', used to mean not the listener specifically, but people in general. *''One needs to provide food for oneself and one's family.'' (formal) *''You need to provide food for yourself and your family.'' (informal if used with the meaning of the above sentence) When excluding oneself, one can use the
generic they In Modern English, ''they'' is a third-person pronoun relating to a grammatical subject. Morphology In Standard Modern English, ''they'' has five distinct word forms: * ''they'': the nominative (subjective) form * ''them'': the accusati ...
: *'' In Japan they work extremely hard, often sacrificing comfort for themselves and their families.'' Other techniques that can be used to avoid the use of ''one'', in contexts where it seems over-formal, include use of the
passive voice A passive voice construction is a grammatical voice construction that is found in many languages. In a clause with passive voice, the grammatical subject expresses the ''theme'' or '' patient'' of the main verb – that is, the person or thing ...
, pluralizing the sentence (so as to talk about "people", for example), use of other indefinite pronouns such as ''someone'' or phrases like "a person" or "a man", and other forms of
circumlocution Circumlocution (also called circumduction, circumvolution, periphrasis, kenning, or ambage) is the use of an unnecessarily large number of words to express an idea. It is sometimes necessary in communication (for example, to work around lexical ga ...
. Occasionally, the pronoun ''one'' as considered here may be avoided so as to avoid ambiguity with other uses of the word ''one''. For example, in the sentence ''If one enters two names, one will be rejected'', the second ''one'' may refer either to the person entering the names, or to one of the names.


See also

* * * * *


References

English words {{DEFAULTSORT:One (Pronoun) Modern English personal pronouns