English Human Impersonal Pronouns

This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of the impersonal uses of you, one, they, and people in English. The corpus-based study examines shifts in use from the 17th century to today, discusses further impersonalization strategies, such as passives, and compares impersonal you with second-person pronouns in other languages. It highlights key innovations such as the rise of simulating you - where the addressee is not a member of the group generalized over - and considers language-external as well as language-internal motivations for these changes. Combining synchronic and diachronic perspectives, the book is a valuable resource for scholars in historical linguistics, pragmatics, and syntax.

Florian Haas, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Germany.