---
title: "On the feature (in)deficiency of dedicated impersonal pronouns:"
description: "The authors also argue that it is a definite but non-specific DP. The result matters because it splits the \"featureless\" view into… 53 references."
authors: ["Mohammad Ali Alhailawani", "Waleed Ahmad Othman", "Osama Abdel-Rahman Abdel-Ghafer"]
year: 2022
venue: "Glossa: a journal of general linguistics"
source: "https://www.glossa-journal.org/article/id/9367/"
doi: "10.16995/glossa.9367"
licence: "CC BY 4.0"
licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License"
canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/alhailawani-2022-feature-deficiency-dedicated-impersonal-pronouns/"
---
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# On the feature (in)deficiency of dedicated impersonal pronouns: the view from Jordanian Arabic

**Authors:** Mohammad Ali Alhailawani, Waleed Ahmad Othman and Osama Abdel-Rahman Abdel-Ghafer · **Year:** 2022 · **Venue:** [Glossa: a journal of general linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/glossa-a-journal-of-general-linguistics/) ([Glossa a journal of general linguistics 2022](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/glossa-a-journal-of-general-linguistics/2022/)) · **Publisher:** [Ubiquity Press](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/publishers/ubiquity-press/) · **Licence:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

**Links:** [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.9367) · [PDF](https://www.glossa-journal.org/article/9367/galley/22637/download) · [DOI 10.16995/glossa.9367](https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.9367) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W4309319889)

**Citations:** 3 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14)

## Summary
The paper tests a common assumption about dedicated impersonal pronouns such as English *one* and Dutch *men*: that they carry no person, number or gender features in the syntax. The authors examine Jordanian Arabic (JA), where the numeral *waaħad* ('one') with the definite article *il-* works as an impersonal pronoun. JA verbs agree fully with their subjects, so agreement shows which features the pronoun actually carries. Using constructed and glossed examples and standard syntactic diagnostics, they find that imp-waaħad behaves like the English type rather than the Dutch type. It allows only a generic reading that includes the speaker, and it can occupy many syntactic positions.

On features, the pronoun lacks person, like other impersonals. Unlike them, it is always singular and, in suitable contexts, feminine. The authors also argue that it is a definite but non-specific DP. The result matters because it splits the "featureless" view into two claims: missing person is the core property of impersonals, while number and gender can still be present.

## Key points
- Impersonals in Germanic and Romance fall into two classes.
  - Generic-only pronouns, such as English *one* and Frisian *men*, can bear any case.
  - Generic-or-existential pronouns, such as Dutch *men* and Swedish *man*, are restricted to nominative.
- JA imp-waaħad requires the article *il-*. It gets only a generic inclusive reading, appears in multiple positions, and fits Fenger's (2018) proposal that exclusively generic pronouns project a KP. The syntax follows Ackema & Neeleman (2018).
- Agreement evidence shows the pronoun is underspecified for person, always singular, and feminine in some contexts (the form *waħdih*, 'one.fem').
- Three diagnostics support definiteness:
  - The pronoun shows no quantificational-variability effects, patterning with *il-Taalib* ('the student').
  - It is banned from existential *fii* clauses, which require indefinite subjects.
  - It can appear as a conjunct alongside a full DP.
- Following Hoekstra (2010), the authors conclude that impersonals are definite and differ from personal pronouns by always being non-specific.

## Interesting ideas
- Treat feature deficiency as separate per feature rather than all-or-nothing: a pronoun can lack person yet still carry number and gender.
- Use visible agreement on the verb as independent evidence for a hidden nominal feature, instead of relying on intuition about meaning.
- A generic impersonal acts as a bound variable, so every occurrence of it in one sentence refers to the same generic individual.
- Test definiteness with a battery of diagnostics: exclusion from existential constructions, coordination with full DPs, and the presence or absence of quantificational-variability readings.
- The link between reading and distribution (generic-only pronouns appear anywhere, and their existential use is impossible) gives a clean negative control.

## For Mova

How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests:

- **I1** (tokens): let the morphology layer give generic *one* Number=Sing with no Person value, so agreement checks stay consistent without inventing a person feature.
- **I2** (tree): when gparse or the perceptron parser disagree on a subject attachment, verb–subject agreement features can act as a tie-breaking witness that the parser can explain.
- **I3** (frames): coreference should link all instances of generic *one* within a sentence to a single GEN variable rather than to any discourse entity, turning "when one…, one…" into a conditional frame.
- **I4** (world): similar checks (e.g., "there is the X" being odd) could decide whether a noun phrase introduces a new world entity, refers back to a known one, or is a non-specific generic that adds no entity at all.
- **I5** (learn): add sentences like "*One has called for you*" as negative controls, so a reader that resolves generic *one* to a specific caller is flagged as wrong.

*Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.*

## Institutions

- [Jordan University of Science and Technology](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/jordan-university-of-science-and-technology/) — University, Irbid, Jordan · 10 works · 1,791 citations
- [Petra University](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/petra-university/) — University, Amman, Jordan · 2 works · 4 citations

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## Cite

Cite as: Mohammad Ali Alhailawani, Waleed Ahmad Othman and Osama Abdel-Rahman Abdel-Ghafer. 2022. On the feature (in)deficiency of dedicated impersonal pronouns: the view from Jordanian Arabic. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics.

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work.

```bibtex
@article{alhailawani2022feature,
  title = {{On the feature (in)deficiency of dedicated impersonal pronouns: the view from Jordanian Arabic}},
  author = {Mohammad Ali Alhailawani, Waleed Ahmad Othman and Osama Abdel-Rahman Abdel-Ghafer},
  journal = {Glossa: a journal of general linguistics},
  year = {2022},
  doi = {10.16995/glossa.9367},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.9367}
}
```

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