Anintensive pronoun (orself-intensifier) adds emphasis to a statement; for example, "I did itmyself." While English intensive pronouns (e.g.,myself,yourself,himself, herself,ourselves,yourselves,themselves) use the same form asreflexive pronouns, an intensive pronoun is different from a reflexive pronoun because it functions as anadverbial oradnominalmodifier, not as anargument of a verb. Both intensive and reflexive pronouns make reference to anantecedent. For example, compare "I will do itmyself," where "myself" is a self-intensifier indicating that nobody else did it, to "I sold myself," where "myself" fills the argument role ofdirect object.[1] This sentence may be extended, as in "I sold myselfmyself," where the second pronoun emphasizes the fact that nobody helped me to sell myself.
Self-intensifiers have also been called simply "intensifiers",[2] or "emphatic reflexives", or "intensive reflexives". In many languages, they are similar or identical toreflexive pronouns.
Latin has a dedicated intensifier,ipse,-a,-um, used to emphasize a noun or pronoun in either a subject or a predicate of a sentence.
InDanish, emphasis is indicated using the wordselv; "I will do it myself" is renderedJeg gør det selv. When a verb is used that requires reflexion, it becomes similar to English except that two words are used: "I help myself" is renderedJeg hjælper mig selv.
InGerman, emphasis is indicated using the wordselbst. "I will do it myself" is renderedIch werde es selbst tun.Dutch usage ofzelf is identical:Ik zal het zelf doen.
InSpanish, as in most otherpro-drop languages, emphasis can be added simply by explicitly using the omissible pronoun. Following the above example, "I will do it myself" is rendered "Lo haréyo." Adding "mismo" after the pronoun yields additional emphasis.
French uses a form of thedisjunctive pronoun that is followed by the adverb-même (e.g.Je l'ai faitmoi-même.).
There are intensive forms of personal pronouns inUdmurt language,Komi language, andTatar language, e.g., "[you] ourselves": Udmurt: 'асьтэос', Komi: 'асьныд', Tatar: 'үзегез'.[3]
InRussian language the intensifiers are 'sam' (masculine myself, masculine yourself, himself) / sama (feminine myself, feminine yourself, herself) / sami (*selves) and unlike English they differ from the reflexive modifier 'sebya', applicable to all pronouns. Intensifier pronouns may be used to intensify the 'base' pronoun: "ona sama vidit" ("She-herself-sees), as well as by themselves: "sama vidit" (herself-sees), because in Russian the base pronoun may be omitted, because it may be inferred from the declension of the verb. The same is with theBelarusian language.[citation needed]
