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    6.4 The arbitrary pronoun man ‘one’
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    There are two arbitrary pronouns, which must be distinguished from each other. In the first place, there is the generic impersonal pronoun man ‘one’, which has a weak form me ‘one’. It will be glossed as ARB. This pronoun can be used inclusively, so including the speaker, as in the following example:

    1
    Me weet silläärge nit, wo hie dät meent.
    ARB knows never not how he that means
    You never know what he means by that.

    In addition, there is the pronoun aan ‘one, someone’, which is closely related to, but not must be kept separate from, the article and the numeral aan ‘one’. This pronoun is also arbitrary, but it can single out individuals to the exclusion of others (unlike man), as in the following example:

    2
    Aan moat ‘t daach däin häbe.
    ARB must it but done have
    But somebody must have done it.

    This pronoun is also glossed as ARB. Here the arbitrary pronoun does not include the speaker. It is individuating, though the identity of the person involved is not known. These remarks apply to the use of the arbitrary pronoun in subject position. In object positions matters seem to be different again. In fact, the pronoun aan functions as the non-subject counterpart of man.

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    The generic arbitrary pronoun man ‘one’ is restricted to the subject position. It can be inclusive, that is, it can include the speaker. If it includes the speaker, it is still not just a synonym of the 1SG pronoun. Its meaning seems to be ‘people’, or on an inclusive reading ‘me or other people’. This is further supported by the following example:

    3
    Kumt man aber in dän Noaber sin Tuun, deer findt man nit een Ploante.
    comes ARB but in the neighbour his garden there finds ARB not a plant
    But if you come into the neighbor's garden, you won't even find a plant.

    The following examples show that the non-subject equivalent of the generic pronoun man ‘man’ is the arbitrary pronoun aan ‘one’, even though they are not synonyms in the subject position.

    4
    Dan bleeuw aan niks uurs urich, as tou blieuwen, wier man waas.
    then stayed ARB nothing else over as to stay where ARB
    Then you had no choice but to stay where you were.

    Here it is clear that aan, which functions as object, corefers with the following man in subject position. Furthermore, here aan does not single out an individual against the other individuals of the group: it applies generically. The relation between aan and man seems to be coreference rather than binding. The following example shows that aan can occur in a non-subject position without there being any instance of man.

    5
    'n Läipen Frjuund kon aan fon't Bääd ap't Sträi hälpe.
    a bad friend can ARB from.the bed on.the straw help
    A bad friend can bring you from bad to worse.

    In this example, aan does not single out an individual. So it seems that aan can, but doesn’t need to, single out an arbitrary individual from a group, wheras man cannot single out an individual from a group. The following example shows that man can be used to the exclusion of the speaker:

    6
    Sjuch dät junge Wucht deer, dät man do wülde Dierte pries rakt.
    see that young girl.NTR there REL.NTR ARB the wild animals price gives
    Behold that young girl abandoned to the wild beasts.

    One could suppose that the exclusive use of man may be due to interference from German, but this is a matter for further investigation. The following example shows that the reflexive counterpart of the arbitrary pronoun is sik ‘self’.

    7
    Deer mout me sik oafte wunnerje.
    there must ARB REFL often wonder
    One often has to wonder in that respect.

    The arbitrary 3SG pronoun for Saterland Frisian thus has the paradigm outlined in the table below:

    Table 1
    SUBJ OBJ POSS REFL
    ARB PRONOUN man, me / aan aan sin sik

    Apart from the reflexive, this is also the paradigm which we find in Middle West Frisian (16th - 18th centuries), see Slofstra & Hoekstra (2021).

    References
      About this article
      Author(s): Eric Hoekstra, Bouke Slofstra
      Category: Saterfrisian Syntax
      Version: 1.0, December 2023
      Version history:
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      1.0 Eric Hoekstra, Bouke Slofstra December 2023
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