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    Unspecific or arbitrary 3SG pronoun
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    Unspecific personal pronouns are also referred to as arbitrary pronouns, indefinite pronouns, generic pronouns or impersonal pronouns. The 3SG pronoun men is used for arbitrary reference. The weak 2PL pronoun jo / je can also be used for unspecific personal reference, as well as the 2SG pronoun do, if pronounced with a schwa. Both pronouns include the speaker. Do, when pronounced with a full vowel, cannot be used for unspecific reference, unlike jo.

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    The meaning of the unspecific personal subject pronoun men usually includes the speaker, unlike Dutch men. The following sentences are ungrammatical, since they exclude the speaker:

    1
    a. *Men seit dat smoken net sûn is
    one says that smoking not healthy is
    They say that smoking is not healthy
    b. *Yn 'e 19e ieu hat men dy stins ôfbrutsen
    in the nineteenth-century has one that manor down.tear
    That manor was torn down in the 19th century

    In order to express such meanings, Frisian employs the same means as English: a passive construction is used, or the third person plural pronoun with a verb of saying. As mentioned, men includes the speaker. As a result, it can even be sloppily coreferential with the first person pronoun:

    2
    Ik wenje yn sa'n drokke strjitte, men kriget nachts gjin wink yn 'e eagen
    I live in such.a busy street one gets night no wink in the eyes
    I am living in such a busy street, I do not get a wink of sleep at night

    Men is ordinarily pronounced with a schwa, but it can also be stressed, and then it is pronounced with a mid front vowel (as in the English word men). In that case, its meaning is roughly people like me, the likes of me. An example is provided below:

    3
    In oar hat it dien en men kriget de skuld
    an other has it done and one gets the blame
    Someone else did it and I get the blame

    Men has an object form jin and a possessive form jins. The last two forms derive historically from the indefinite pronoun ien one. Examples are given below:

    4
    a. Men moat net alles leauwe wat se jin fertelle
    one must not everything believe what they one tell
    One should not believe everything that they tell one
    b. Jins ûnthâld wurdt mei de jierren minder
    one's memory gets with the years worse
    One's memory gets worse with the years

    Competing with men are the 2SG pronoun jo / je and the weak form (that is, pronounced with a schwa) of the 2SG pronoun do. These forms obligatorily include the speaker:

    5
    a. Soks dogge je net
    such.a.thing do you not
    You do not do things like that
    b. Do kinst poerbêst ite yn dat restaurant
    you can.2SG very.well eat in that restaurant
    You can eat very well in that restaurant

    The pro-dropped form can also have an unspecific inclusive interpretation:

    6
    Kinst poerbêst ite yn dat restaurant
    can.2SG very.well eat in that restaurant
    You can eat very well in that restaurant

    In older Frisian, the pronoun men could also be construed with a plural verb form:

    7
    Mem sei, sa út 'e doar wei: Men soene der sin oan krije om mei
    mother said so from the door away one would.PL it.R liking to get for with
    Mother said, standing in the doorway, one would almost feel like accompanying them

    The pronoun can also be the antecedent for a reciprocal, though the verb is in the singular. Apparently, the pronoun can be semantically plural:

    8
    Men moat inoar helpe
    one must each.other help
    One must help each other

    Unspecific pronouns can be argued to be definite, as is clear from the following facts. First, they may appear as content noun in the partitive construction, just as definite pronouns may:

    9
    a. Ien fan ús moat de foarstap nimme
    one of us must the first.step take
    One of us has to take the first step
    b. Ien fan jin moat de foarstap nimme
    one of one must the first.step take
    One of us has to take the first step

    Second, unspecific pronouns may not appear in the existential there-construction, which makes sense if they are definite. Third, they may just like definite pronouns be combined with a predicative phrase:

    10
    a. As goefries moat men altyd ferkâlden wêze
    as good-Frisian must one always having.a.cold be
    As a good Frisian one must always have a cold
    b. As goefries moat ik altyd ferkâlden wêze
    as good-Frisian must I always having.a.cold be
    As a good Frisian I must always have a cold

    The indefinite pronoun ien one differs in all these three respects from unspecific pronouns. This is illustrated below for the test with a predicate phrase:

    11
    *As goefries moat ien altyd ferkâlden wêze
    as good-Frisian must one always having.a.cold be
    As a good Frisian one must always have a cold

    extra
    Literature

    More details can be found in Hoekstra (2010).

    References
    • Hoekstra, Jarich2010On the impersonal pronoun men in Modern West FrisianThe Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics1331-59
    About this article
    Author(s): Eric Hoekstra
    Category: Frisian Syntax
    Keywords: unspecific personal pronounsunspecific personal subject pronoun2SG pronouns jo/je/do
    Version: 1.0, December 2015
    Version history:
    version editor(s) date remarks
    1.0 Eric Hoekstra December 2015
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