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| Transitivity and valency |
|---|
| Transitivity |
| Intransitive verb Transitive verb Ambitransitive verb |
| Valency |
| Impersonal (Avalent) Intransitive verb (Monovalent) Monotransitive (Divalent) Ditransitive verb (Trivalent) Tritransitive verb (Quadrivalent) |
| Valence increasing |
| Causative Applicative Benefactive Dative shift |
| Valence decreasing |
| Passive Antipassive Impersonal passive |
| Reflexives and reciprocals |
| Reflexive pronoun Reflexive verb Reciprocal construction Reciprocal pronoun |
 Linguistics portal |
Areflexive pronoun is apronoun that refers to another noun or pronoun (itsantecedent) within the same sentence.
In theEnglish language specifically, a reflexive pronoun will end in-self or-selves, and refer to a previously named noun or pronoun (myself,yourself,ourselves,themselves, etc.). Englishintensive pronouns, used for emphasis, take the same form.
Ingenerative grammar, a reflexive pronoun is ananaphor that must be bound by its antecedent (seebinding). In a general sense, it is anoun phrase that obligatorily gets its meaning from another noun phrase in the sentence.[1] Different languages have differentbinding domains for reflexive pronouns, according to their structure.
InIndo-European languages, the reflexive pronoun has its origins inProto-Indo-European.[dubious –discuss]
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In some languages, some distinction exists between normal object and reflexive pronouns, mainly in the third person: whether one says "I like me" or "I like myself", there is no question that the object is the same person as the subject; but, in "They like them(selves)", there can be uncertainty about the identity of the object unless a distinction exists between the reflexive and the nonreflexive. In some languages, this distinction includesgenitive forms: see, for instance, the Danish examples below. In languages with a distinct reflexive pronoun form, it is oftengender-neutral.
A reflexive pronoun is normally used when the object of a sentence is the same as the subject. Each personal pronoun (such asI,you,he andshe) has its own reflexive form:
These pronouns can also be usedintensively, to emphasize the identity of whomever or whatever is being talked about:
Intensive pronouns usually appear near and/or before the subject of the sentence.
Usually, after prepositions of locality it is preferred to use apersonal object pronoun rather than a reflexive pronoun:[2]
Compare:
Certain verbs have reflexive pronouns in some languages but not in English:[3]
Compare to French:
The list of such verbs:
Non-reflexive use of reflexive pronouns is rather common in English. Most of the time, reflexive pronouns function asemphatic pronouns that highlight or emphasize the individuality or particularity of the noun. Grammatically, the position of reflexive pronouns in this usage is either right after the noun the pronouns are emphasizing or, if the noun is subject, after-verb-or-object position is also possible. For example, "Why don't youyourself do the job?", "Why don't you do the jobyourself?", or "I want to fix my phoneitself; I will not fix your watch as well."[4]
Some speakers use reflexive pronouns without local linguistic antecedents to refer to discourse participants or people already referenced in a discourse: for example, "Please, forward the information tomyself, Anything else foryourself today?" Within the linguistics literature, reflexives with discourse antecedents are often referred to aslogophors. Standard English allows use of logophors in some contexts: for example, "John was angry. Embarrassing pictures of himself were on display." However, within Standard English, this logophoric use of reflexives is generally limited to positions where the reflexive does not have a coargument.[5] The newer non-standard usage does not respect this limitation. In some cases, reflexives without local antecedents may be better analyzed as emphatic pronouns without any true reflexive sense.
It is common in some dialects of English to use standardobject pronouns to express reflexive relations, especially in the first and sometimes second persons, and especially for a recipient: for example, "I want to getme some supper." While this was seemingly standard in Old English through the Early Modern Period (with "self" constructs primarily used for emphatic purposes), it is held to be dialectal or nonstandard in Modern English.[6][7]
It is also common in informal speech to usemyself in a conjunctive phrase when 'me' would suffice: "She stood by Jane and myself." Alsomyself is used when 'I' would also be appropriate; for example, Thomas Jefferson was quoted as saying, "Hamilton and myself were daily pitted in the cabinet like two cocks."[8]
InMandarin Chinese, the reflexive pronoun is自己, meaning "self".[9] The antecedent it refers to can be inferred by context, which is generally the subject of the sentence:
The antecedent can be reiterated before the reflexive pronoun; this can be used to refer to an antecedent that's not the subject:
Like English, the reflexive can also be used to emphasize the antecedent:[9]
The reflexive can also be the subject of an embedded clause.
Also unlike English, the reflexive can refer to antecedents outside of the embedded clause. Because of this, it may be ambiguous whether the antecedent refers to the subject of the main clause or the embedded clause, in which case it may be necessary to reiterate the antecedent:
The reflexive pronoun inCantonese Chinese,jihgéi,cognate to Mandarinzìjǐ (and thus also written as自己), also follows the same rules.[10] This was also the case inClassical Chinese, which simply used己[11] (Old Chinese: *kəʔ[12]).
Danish uses the separate reflexive pronounsig for third person pronouns, and 'selv' to mark intensive.
In Danish, there is also a difference between normal and reflexive genitives, the latter being used only in the singular:
In the latter case,sin is a case of areflexive possessive pronoun, i.e. it reflects that the subject in the phrase (Anna) owns the object (the book).
TheEsperanto third-person reflexive pronoun issi, orsia for the possessive (to which can be added-j for plural agreement and-n for direct object).[citation needed]
InFrench, the main reflexive pronoun is'se', with itsindefinite formsoi.
There are also intensifying reflexive pronouns, such asmoi-même,toi-même,lui-même/elle-même/soi-même,nous-mêmes,vous-mêmes andeux-mêmes/elles-mêmes, similar in meaning (but not often used) to myself, yourself, etc.
French also uses reflexive verbs to express actions that somebody is doing to themselves. Many of these are related to daily routine. For example,
InGerman, the reflexive case is not distinguishable from the accusative and dative cases except in the third person reflexive.[13] As discussed above, the reflexive case is most useful when handling third person because it is not always clear that pronouns refer to the same person, whereas in the first and second persons, it is clear:he hit him andhe hit himself have different meanings, butI hit me andI hit myself mean the same thing although the former is nonstandard English.
Because the accusative and dative cases are different, the speaker must know whether the verb is reflexive accusative or reflexive dative. There are very few reflexive dative verbs, which must be memorised to ensure that the correct grammar is used. The most notable one is(sich) weh tun (to hurt oneself):Ich tue mir weh. (I hurt myself.) See alsoGerman pronouns.
InHindi, there are two primary reflexive pronouns, the reflexive pronounखुद (khud) [from PIE*swé] meaning "self" and pronounअपना (apnā) [fromPII*HáHtmā "self"] which is the possessive reflexive pronoun and both these pronouns are used with all the three, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, persons.[14] There is also the pronounआपस (āpas) which is used with either theinessive case-markerमें (mẽ) forming the reflexive pronounआपस में (āpas mẽ) meaning "among ourselves" or the genitive postpostionका (kā) forming the reflexing pronounआपस का (āpas kā) meaning "of ourselves". The genitive reflexive pronoun can also be used to emphasise when used with the personal genitive pronouns, so e.g.मेरा (merā) "mine" becomesमेरा अपना (merā apnā) "my very own".[14] Alternatively, using the genitive postpositionका (kā) withखुद (khud) givesमेरे खुदका (mere khudkā) meaning the same asमेरा अपना (merā apnā).These reflexive pronouns can be used with case-marking postpositions as shown below in the table to the right.
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Hungarian has two primary means of expressing reflexivity.
The most common is by means of the stemmag- which behaves much like standard postpositions and case endings in Hungarian in that it can take the six personal suffixes to form the following personal pronouns:
Thus formed, these reflexive pronouns are in the nominative (i.e. subject) case and can take any case ending or postposition:magamnak (for myself),magunk előtt (in front of ourselves),magát (himself/herself (acc.)). However the accusative case marking-t is often omitted inmagamat (myself), andmagadat (yourself) remainingmagam andmagad respectively. This is also the case with possessed nouns using the same personal endings e.g.házam (my house), andkocsid (your car) both of which can be interpreted in less formal language as either nominative or accusative depending on context. Nonetheless, using the accusative ending-t (as inházamat andkocsidat) is still considered formal and correct.
Relfexive pronouns in the nominative case exist but have no logical reflexive function. Rather they have an intensifying purpose and follow the subject (if given):
note the absence of non-reflexive subject pronoun in the latter case where the verb marking implies the subject. In order to intensify a relfexive pronoun in any other case, i.e. a reflexive pronoun with a genuine reflexive grammatical function the wordsaját (one's own) is added before the reflexive pronoun:
The second reflexive mechanism in Hungarian is the wordön (self) which is most commonly used as a prefix with the meaning of(one)self-, For exampleöngyilkos (suicide victim, lit. "self-murderer") andönfeláldozni (to sacrifice oneself). This can be combined with the reflexive pronouns above to express intensity or formality:
The prefixön can also be used in the manner ofsaját, above, but the sense is more formal than intensive.
Hungarian does not have a T-V distinction as in many European languages, rather it uses third person reflexive pronouns and third person verbs to indicate politeness. The singular pronounsön (self) andmaga (himself/herself) and the plural pronounsönök (selves) andmaguk (themselves) are used when addressing one or more people (respectively) in a formal context, whether written or spoken. Largely seen as interchangeable,ön andönök are less common and perceived as somewhat more formal thanmaga andmaguk. The combined formsönmaga andönmaguk are only used to express intensity and genuine reflexivity as laid out above, but are not used as non-reflexive formal/polite pronouns.
Grammatically, when usingön,maga,önök, ormaguk as subject pronouns, they will be treated as though they were non-reflexive third person pronouns. This means verbs agree with a third person subject (despite having a second person referent in reality) but unlike a true reflexive object pronoun (which requires a definite verb ending), verbs using formal/polite pronouns conjugate for definite or indefinite objects as that verb's actual object requires. Compare the following:
Here the verb uses the second person plural indefinite ending-tok indicating that the object of the verb is unclear or non-existent.
Here the verb has changed from the second person plural indefinite ending to the definite ending-játok to indicate the reflexive object.
Here the verb uses the third person plural indefinite ending-nak
Here the verb also uses the third person plural indefinite ending-nak as the formal pronoun is third person, but unlike true reflexives, it does not require a definite verb ending.
Here the verb is conjugated with the third person plural definite ending-ják as the pronoun is a genuine reflexive. In this case, it is not possible to tell from the sentence alone whether the intention is third person informal, or second person formal. In reality however when clarity is required an explicit subject pronoun can be used to express informal third person (ők magukat mossák), or more formal language can be used to express formal second person usage (magukat tetszik mosni lit. "it pleases to wash oneselves").
There is only one reflexive pronoun inIcelandic and that is the wordsig. It does not differ betweengenders nornumber.
The reflexive pronouns are as such:
| Singular andplural | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | |
| Nominative | (hann/hún/það/þeir/þær/þau) ("he/she/it/they") | ||
| Accusative | sig | ||
| Dative | sér | ||
| Genitive | sín | ||
The reflexive pronoun refers to thethird person:
The reflexive pronouns inItalian are:
Reflexive pronouns are usually employed when the direct object in a sentence is also its subject, thus reflecting the action as expressed in the verb on the subject itself.
This pronoun allows the building of three kinds of reflexive verbal forms: proper, non-proper (or ostensible), and reciprocal.
Notice that the sentenceI wash myself could also be translated in Italian asio lavome stesso, stressing the reflexiveness much more than English.
The complete list of intensifying reflexive pronouns is:
In theJapanese language,jibun (自分) andjibunjishin (自分自身) are reflexive pronouns that correspond roughly to 'oneself'. They differ from English in some ways; for example,jibun andjibunjishin do not have to agree in gender or number where English reflexives do.Jibun can further be bound locally or long distance where English reflexives must always occur locally. Although both English and Japanese pronouns must bec-commanded by their antecedents, because of the syntactic structure of Japanese, long distance binding is allowed.
InKorean,jagi자기(自己) andjasin자신(自身) are used as reflexive pronouns that refer to 'myself', 'himself', 'herself', and 'ourselves'.Jagijasin자기자신(自己自身) is also a reflexive pronoun but it usually corresponds only to the first person (myself).
In the first and second persons,Latin uses the ordinary oblique forms of the personal pronouns as reflexive pronouns. In the third person, Latin uses the special reflexive pronounse, which is the same for all genders and numbers, and declined in allcases except thenominative and thevocative.
| Singular orPlural | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | |
| Nominative | — | ||
| Vocative | — | ||
| Accusative | sē,sēsē | ||
| Genitive | suī | ||
| Dative | sibi | ||
| Ablative | sē,sēsē | ||
| Locative | sē,sēsē | ||
| Accusative | Dative | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full | Short | Full | Short |
| себе | се | себе | си |
An alternative full form,себеси, is used for emphasis.
(Novial is aconstructed language, mostly based onRomance languages.)
| Nominative | – |
|---|---|
| Genitive | siebie |
| Dative | sobie |
| Accusative | się,siebie |
| Instrumental | sobą |
| Locative | sobie |
InPolish the oblique reflexive pronouns issię and it declines as above. It is used with 1st, 2nd and 3rd person:
It has been grammaticalized to a high degree, becoming also a marker of medial and/or anti-causative voice:
Similarly, the dativesobie gained an additional, volitional/liberative meaning, usually used in informal speech:
Moreover, the phraseiść sobie has been lexicalized and means "to leave" (cf. Frenchs'en aller):
Polish also has a possessive reflexive pronounswój (swoja,swoje). It assumes the gender of the possessed object, not that of the possessor.
Not using a reflexive pronoun might indicate the other party's possession of the object:
The intensive meaning is done by the pronounsam (inflecting for case, gender and number):
| Nominative | samm | samon | samaf | samiv pl | samenv pl |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Genitive | samego | samej | samych | ||
| Dative | samemu | samej | samym | ||
| Accusative | samego, sam | samo | samą | samych | same |
| Instrumental | samym | samą | samymi | ||
| Locative | samym | samej | samych | ||
Usually inflectedsię is added in obliques:
Emphatically the accusative can be replaced with dative:
There are two ways to make a reflexive sentence inPortuguese. The first way is by attaching the reflexive pronoun (me, te, se, nos - also vos) to the verb. The second way is by also attaching the wordsmesmo/a(s) orpróprio/a(s), masc/fem. (plural) (="self"), immediately after the verb to add stress/intensity :
InRussian, the pronounсебяsebya universally means "oneself"/"myself"/"himself", etc. It is inflected depending on thecase.[15]
When used to indicate that the person is the direct object of the verb, one uses theaccusative form,sebya.[16] (It does not have a nominative form.)
Emphasized forms are "sam sebya" - masculine, "sama sebya" - feminine, "sami sebya" - plural. However, the word "sam" usually comes after the noun it is emphasizing.[17]
This sentence underlines that the subject inflicted the wounds while in the previous example, "sebya" merely indicates that the subject was wounded.
In addition, the reflexive pronounsebya gave rise the reflexive affix-sya (-ся) used to generatereflexive verbs, but in this context the affix indicates that the action happened accidentally:[18]
There are certain stylistic differences between the three usages, despite being rendered in the same way in English.
When the person is not a direct object of the verb, other cases are used:
Compare:
Russian has a reflexive possessive as well.[19]
Because of the existence of reflexive forms, the use of a non-reflexive pronoun indicates a subject that is different from the object. If it is impossible, the sentence is invalid or at least irregular:
Serbo-Croatian uses the reflexive pronounsebe/se, which is the same for all persons, numbers and genders, and declined as follows:[20]
| Nominative | – |
|---|---|
| Genitive | sebe |
| Dative | sebi/si |
| Accusative | sebe/se |
| Vocative | – |
| Instrumental | sobom |
| Locative | sebi |
The words that modify the reflexive pronoun do show gender and number:[20]
The enclitic form of the reflexive pronoun,se, has been grammaticalized to a high degree:[20]
InSpanish, the reflexive pronouns are:me/nos (first person singular/plural),te/os (second person) orse (third person). In Latin America,os is not used, being replaced byse for the pronounustedes. For clarity, there are optional intensifying adjuncts for reflexive pronouns, accompanied bymismo/a (masculine and feminine forms for "self"). They are not strictly adjuncts:sí mismo/a (instead ofse),ti mismo/a (in theRío de la Plata region, it is replaced byvos mismo/a),mí mismo/a—they usually postpend the genitive.
Example with "wash oneself":
Note that the indirect object "le"/"les" doesnot override "se" in the reflexive.
TheSlovene language has reflexive pronouns as well:
InUzbek, the pronouno'zi (IPA:[ɜzɪ]), refers tooneself and, to create a person specific forms, it requires certain affixes:[21]
myself -o'zi +-mni =>o'zimni (IPA:[ɜzɪmnɪ]); tomyself -o'zi +-mga =>o'zimga (IPA:[ɜzɪmgʌ]); frommyself -o'zi +-mdan =>o'zimdan (IPA:[ɜzɪmdʌn]);
yourself -o'zi +-ngni =>o'zingni (IPA:[ɜzɪngnɪ]); toyourself -o'zi +-ngga =>o'zingga (IPA:[ɜzɪngʌ]); fromyourself -o'zi +-ngdan =>o'zingdan (IPA:[ɜzɪngdʌn]);
himself/herself/itself -o'zi +-ni =>o'zini (IPA:[ɜzɪnɪ]); tohimself/herself/itself-o'zi +-ga =>o'ziga (IPA:[ɜzɪgʌ]); fromhimself/herself/itself-o'zi +-dan =>o'zidan (IPA:[ɜzɪdʌn]);
ourselves -o'zi +-mizni =>o'zimizni (IPA:[ɜzɪmɪznɪ]); toourselves-o'zi +-mizga =>o'zimizga (IPA:[ɜzɪmɪzgʌ]); fromourselves -o'zi +-mizdan =>o'zimizdan (IPA:[ɜzɪmɪzdʌn]);
yourselves -o'zi +-ngizni =>o'zingizni (IPA:[ɜzɪngɪznɪ]); toyourselves -o'zi +-ngizga =>o'zingizga (IPA:[ɜzɪngɪzgʌ]); fromyourselves -o'zi +-ngizdan =>o'zingizdan (IPA:[ɜzɪngɪzdʌn]);
themselves -o'z +-larini =>o'zlarini (IPA:[ɜzlʌrɪnɪ]); tothemselves-o'z +-lariga =>o'zlariga (IPA:[ɜzɪlʌrɪgʌ]); fromthemselves-o'z +-laridan =>o'zilaridan (IPA:[ɜzɪlʌrɪdʌn]);
Emphatic-pronoun use:
myself -o'zi +-m =>o'zim (IPA:[ɜzɪm])
yourself -o'zi +-ng =>o'zing (IPA:[ɜzɪng])
himself/herself/itself -o'zi +- =>o'zi (IPA:[ɜzɪ])
ourselves -o'zi +-miz =>o'zimiz (IPA:[ɜzɪmɪz])
yourselves -o'zi +-ngiz =>o'zingiz (IPA:[ɜzɪngɪz])
themselves -o'z +-lari =>o'zlari (IPA:[ɜzlʌrɪ])
Basically, the suffixes change based on the preposition used:[21]
InVietnamese, the reflexive pronoun ismình whose meaning can bemyself,herself,himself,themselves etc. depending on the number/gender of its antecedent.
APama–Nyungan language,Guugu Yimithirr uses the suffix/-gu/ on pronouns—much like-self in English, to emphasize that the action of the verb is performed by the subject and not someone else. Take for example, the following exchange.
A:
B:
Janic K, Puddu N, Haspelmath M (2023). Janic K, Puddu N, Haspelmath M (eds.).Reflexive constructions in the world's languages(pdf). Berlin: Language Science Press.doi:10.5281/zenodo.7861660.ISBN 9783961104116.
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