In the scientific monograph “The pronoun one in discourse – on the border between indefiniteness and personality”, the author starts from the premise that indefinite pronouns, such as the English pronoun one, which is the focus of interest, still represent a little-known or rather unstable category with regard to their reference values and functional aspects in various types of discourse (especially in literary discourse) and deserve further analysis and research that contributes to a better understanding. A comparative analysis of its semantic relatives in German, Croatian and Spanish – the pronouns man and uno as well as the pronominal noun čovjek – contributes to a better understanding of the English pronoun one and is an integral part of this study. Based on the results of the comparative analysis, similarities and differences between the aforementioned semantic relatives were identified. This supports the author’s thesis that other languages have pronouns similar to the English pronoun one, and that these can stand in for various personal pronouns, thus fulfilling diverse stylistic functions such as intensifying statements, generalizing, assimilating, and unifying a variety of different perspectives. Research also confirms the thesis that today’s use of pronouns is rooted in the past and that personal pronouns, especially in English, represent a partially unstable and fluid category, even though they are traditionally regarded as a “closed class” of words. The analysis confirmed the triple nature of the pronoun one, which is also relevant in contemporary language use: one1 (generic one), one2 (generic-egocentric one) and one3 (progressive-egocentric one). By comparing it with the corresponding pronouns in German, Croatian and Spanish, it was found that all three pronouns can serve as both nonspecific (gender-neutral) and specific pronouns, expressing different degrees of generality and representing a means of impersonality and the implementation of quasi-indefiniteness, while in many cases obscuring quite specific referents.
