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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 t ...
,
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 distingu ...
, indefinite pronoun 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/
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 Swe ...
n ''man'', and the Spanish ''uno''. It can take the possessive form ''one's'' and the reflexive form ''oneself'', or it can adopt those forms from the generic he 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 Modern English, pronoun ''one'' has three shapes representing five distinct word forms: * ''one'': the nominative (subjective) and accusative (objective, also known as oblique case) 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 ...
(possessive) forms **Unlike the possessive forms of personal pronouns and '' who'' (''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: * Organism, Living creatures (including people ...
and a determiner that are often called pronouns because they function as pro-forms. Pronoun is a category of words (a "part of speech"). A pro-form is a function of a word or phrase that stands in for (expresses the same content as) another, where the
meaning Meaning most commonly refers to: * Meaning (linguistics), meaning which is communicated through the use of language * Meaning (philosophy), definition, elements, and types of meaning discussed in philosophy * Meaning (non-linguistic), a general te ...
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 ...
'' who'' stands in for "the people". Examples & 4show pronouns but not pro-forms. In the interrogative pronoun ''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, includ ...
, 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, 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 Subject ( la, subiectus "lying beneath") may refer to: Philosophy *''Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing **Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective cons ...
, object, determiner or predicative complement. The reflexive form also appears as an
adjunct Adjunct may refer to: * Adjunct (grammar), words used as modifiers * Adjunct professor, a rank of university professor * Adjuncts, sources of sugar used in brewing * Adjunct therapy used to complement another main therapeutic agent, either to impr ...
. * 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 or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently o ...
. *
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 arguments ...
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 external modifier: ''not even oneself''


Semantics

''One'' generally denotes any single unidentified person, 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 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 during ...
during her reign, are often depicted as using ''one'' as a first-person pronoun. This is frequently used as a caricature 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 distingu ...
; 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 t ...
, 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. 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