Impersonal Pronouns and First-Person Perspective

Impersonal pronouns are prototypically used in generic sentences to make generalizations about people. Yet they unlike bare plural people or indefinite singular a person that exhibit sensitivity first-person perspective. This relationship can be seen ( a) inferences of experience associated with use these pronouns, b) additional meaning components carried by impersonally personal involving presumption empathy (dis)agreement, and c) their interpretation attitude reports, including referential dependency on the holder de se/de re distinction. I survey recent findings perspectival impersonal English one, German man, French on, Italian si, as well like you ich du. end identifying some common themes emerging from formal semantic analyses pronouns. One key notions here is treatment impersonals Heimian indefinites, which contexts get bound operator.