The author defends the thesis that the dative case relation in Indo-European languages represents the second man – participant of the act of the linguistic communication, i.e. the addressee of the information (and the factual consequences of the information) sent by the fi rst man – participant and initiator of the act. Arguments documenting her thesis derive from her analysis of the pronominal systems of Polish and Macedonian as represents of Slavic languages on the one hand and French and English as represents of West European languages.