1.7 Summary and outlook
2.2.3 Impersonal pronouns and existential indefinite pronouns
In this section, further evidence for or against an “indefinite account” for impersonal pronouns—specifically German man—is explored. I review two discussions from the literature that concern comparisons between impersonal pronouns and other indefinite expressions (Zifonun 2000;Cabredo-Hofherr 2008). The first comparison is between the existential use of man and the German indefinite pronoun jemand (Engl. ‘someone’), the second is between the impersonal use ofman and indefinite noun phrases in generic sentences.
One central characteristic property of the existential use ofman is its non-specificity of reference. This property has also been attributed to other pronouns in the class of in-definite pronouns, e.g.jemand (Engl. ‘someone’). One advantage of a direct comparison of man and jemand is that it might help to determine the plausibility of an indefinite account for man since the analysis of jemand as an indefinite expression is uncontro-versial. However, Zifonun (2000) and Cabredo-Hofherr (2008) show that impersonal pronouns are different from existential indefinite pronouns24 in at least three respects:
(i) they have different scopal behavior, (ii) they differ regarding the availability of a generic reading, and (iii) they allow different pronominal anaphors.
Regarding the first point, existentially used man does not interact scopally with
24Zifonun (2000) talks about “Indefinitpronomen”, which are a subclass of “Impersonalpronomen”.
Here the discrepancy between English and German terminology continues: “Indefinitpronomen” (lit.
“indefinite pronouns”) are those indefinite pronouns that are traditionally analyzed as indefinite ex-pressions, i.e. as involving existential quantification.
adverbs of quantification, negation, and coordination; it is invariably interpreted in the scope of these operators. In contrast, jemand shows the scope alternations that are usually found with quantified expressions, as well as the bias found in German for the surface scope order of multiple quantifying expressions, see (36) (the translation gives the preferred interpretation).
‘It happened often already that someone told me that . . . ’ (often>∃) b. Jemand
‘For someone it is the case that he already told me often that . . . ’ (∃>often) (Zifonun 2000:245)
In the first sentence of (36), jemand is naturally interpreted in the scope of oft (Engl.
‘often’). In the second sentence, the preferred scope order is reversed. In contrast, the change in surface order has no effect on the interpretation whenjemand is replaced by man, see (37).
‘It happened often already that someone told me that . . . ’ (often>∃) b. Man
‘It happened often already that someone told me that . . . ’ (often>∃) (Zifonun 2000:245)
Both sentences in (37) have the preferred interpretation where man is interpreted in the scope of oft (Engl. ‘often’).
Similarly, the existential use ofman always has low scope with respect to sentential negation (i.e. nicht), see (38).
(38) Man
‘No one broke into our place last week.’ (¬>∃)
(Zifonun 2000:246)
Note that the use of jemand with overt negation is marked because the alternative expressionniemand (Engl. ‘no one’) is available. Nevertheless, it can be observed that jemand is naturally interpreted as scoping above sentential negation. The sentence in (39) shows the same surface order as example (38), but jemand has high scope (in accordance with the surface scope bias).
(39) Jemand
‘Someone did not break into our place last week.’ (∃>¬) Man and jemand also behave differently in coordinated clauses. Example(40) may be understood as saying that the person breaking into the speaker’s place was the one who took the spoons. In contrast, example(41) unambiguously states that different people did the breaking-in and the stealing (making the sentence somewhat implausible).
(40) Man
‘Someone broke into my place and stole silver spoons in the process.’
(Zifonun 2000:245)
‘Someone broke into my place, and someone stole silver spoons in the process.’
(Zifonun 2000:245)
The second major difference betweenman andjemand is the availability of a generic interpretation for man, but not for jemand. In Section 2.2.1, the impersonal use of impersonal pronouns was identified as their cross-linguistic common core, and based on its frequency in corpora,Zifonun(2000) argues quite convincingly that it is also the primary use of man. The existential indefinite pronoun jemand, in contrast, cannot be interpreted generically. It is interpreted existentially without exception, and even forces an episodic or habitual reading for sentences in which they occur. Compare(42) and (43).
‘One doesn’t eat with one’s hands.’
(Cabredo-Hofherr 2008:39)
‘Someone usually/ at the moment doesn’t eat with his hands.’
(Cabredo-Hofherr 2008:39)
Note, that whilejemand and man seem to contribute the same content when they are in the antecedent of a conditional with generic flavor—cf. examples(44)and (45)—the
unavailability of a generic reading in non-conditional sentences is good evidence that jemand cannot be bound by a generic operator directly.
The third point in which man and jemand differ is the set of possible anaphoric elements. As discussed in Section 2.2.1, man only allows other occurrences of man as anaphors. The only anaphors that are possible forjemand, on the other hand, are third person pronouns. Compare (44) and (45).
(44) Wenn
variable scope generic interpretation anaphors
man no yes only impersonal
jemand yes no only 3rd person pronouns
Table 2.3: Results of the comparison between man and jemand
The differences between man and jemand again suggest that man behaves more like a personal pronoun in its co-reference and binding behavior than like a quantified expression. From this, Zifonun (2000) concludes that man should not be analyzed as an existential indefinite pronoun. She proposes two alternative routes: either (i) man belongs to the class of personal pronouns, or (ii)man receives a special status between indefinite pronouns and personal pronouns.
Cabredo-Hofherr(2008) takes up Zifonun’s discussion, and investigates whether the behavior of man is mirrored by its counterparts in other languages, e.g. French on and Yiddish men. She observes that the differences between impersonal pronouns and existential indefinite pronouns seem to be cross-linguistically stable. Based on this observation, she argues for a special semantic status for impersonal pronouns, i.e. K¨onig and Mauner’s (1999) analysis of man as an “a-definite” (cf. Footnote 12 in Section 2.2.2).
So far, the data discussed in this section suggests that impersonal pronouns are not indefinite expressions. Should the discussion of the semantic accounts and its conclusion in the previous section be rethought then? Perhaps impersonal pronouns are indeed definite expressions?
Before the results of the previous section are questioned, the core impersonal use of impersonal pronouns should be compared to the behavior of other noun phrases in generic sentences.
Three types of noun phrases receive a “special” interpretation in generic sentences (Krifka et al. 1995).25 Bare plural noun phrases are either interpreted as kind-denoting or as quasi-universally quantified:
(46) a. Dodos are extinct. (kind-denoting)
b. Dogs have four legs. (quasi-universally quantified) Indefinite singular noun phrases only allow for a quasi-universally quantified reading, and definite noun phrases only for a kind reading:
(47) a. A dog has four legs. (quasi-universally quantified)
b. The dodo is extinct. (kind-denoting)
Zifonun (2000) observes that impersonally used man only occurs quasi-universally quantified, i.e. even though impersonal pronouns in their impersonal use are constrained to animate individuals (cf. Section1.2.2), they can never denote the kind “animate in-dividual”. Furthermore,man cannot combine with kind predicates, see (48).
(48) #/*Man one
ist is
als as
Dodo dodo
ausgestorben.
extinct Unavailable: ‘Dodos are extinct.’
Regardless of Zifonun’s observation, the impersonal use ofman and its behavior are still compatible with an underlying semantics parallel to that of bare plurals, in addition to that of indefinite singular noun phrases.
(49) Man one
hat has
als as
Hund dog
vier four
Beine.
legs
Available: ‘Dogs have four legs.’ / ‘A dog has four legs.’
The unavailability of a kind reading only excludes the possibility that impersonally used man is interpreted either like a bare plural (in one use) or like a definite noun phrase.
However, some researchers take the differences between impersonal pronouns and exis-tential indefinite pronouns and the unavailability of a kind reading as evidence against analyzing impersonal pronouns as indefinite expressions (cf. Zifonun 2000; Cabredo-Hofherr 2008). I believe that this conclusion is not warranted. I agree with one point only: impersonal pronouns should not be analyzed exactly like existential indefinite pronouns or indefinite noun phrases. The comparisons reviewed above provide ample evidence against a common semantic analysis. Still, the evidence is not enough to discard an analysis ofman as an indefinite expression of some sort. This is supported by at least three reasons.
First, the two definite analyses proposed inKratzer (1997) and Safir(2004) run into
25The following discussion ignores taxonomic kind-readings found with singular indefinite noun phrases, bare plurals, and definite plural noun phrases. Cf.Krifka et al.(1995).
serious conceptual problems (cf. Section 2.2.2). Second, the arguments presented in Kratzer (1997) and Safir (2004) to treat impersonal pronouns as definite expressions are not uncontroversial. In Section2.4, I address the problematic nature of definiteness tests, and the general categories of definiteness and indefiniteness. And third, Zifonun (2000) andCabredo-Hofherr(2008) both in fact argue for a special status of impersonal pronouns with respect to personal pronouns and indefinite pronouns. If this is on the right track, it cannot be concluded that impersonal pronouns are not indefinite expressions, after all.26
To complete the three-way comparison in this section: existential indefinite pronouns in fact also differ from indefinite noun phrases regarding the availability of quantifica-tional variability effects with adverbs of quantification, and regarding the availability of a generic interpretation. Quantificational variability effects are simply impossible for the existential indefinite pronoun jemand. Compare(50-a) and (50-b).
(50) a. Ein Available: ‘Back then, most farmers did not get older than 60.’
b. Jemand
Available: ‘Back then, someone usually did not get older than 60.’
Unavailable: ‘Back then, most people did not get older than 60.’
It is perhaps polemic to ask at this point—given these observations—which of the two expressions, existential indefinite pronouns or indefinite noun phrases, should lose their status as an indefinite expression. What this is supposed to show, however, is that the class of indefinite expressions may not be semantically uniform.
Before I return to the question of definiteness and indefiniteness in Section 2.4, though, I first review two previous formal analyses for impersonally interpreted personal pronouns in Section 2.3.