Abstract
This essay argues that there exist linguistic counterparts to the absentees known to codes of private law: “missing person pronouns.” Examples include certain uses of one and they, which evoke human beings without, however, referring to anyone in particular. To bring such pronouns into focus, the essay considers their peculiar logic in the English language, Émile Benveniste’s theory of the person, and the existential analytic of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time, which accords a crucial—if enigmatic—role to grammatical nobodies of diverse kinds.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 162-172 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Representations |
| Volume | 172 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 1 2025 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Gender Studies
- Cultural Studies
- General Arts and Humanities
- Sociology and Political Science
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