Information about Reflexive Verb
In grammar, a reflexive verb is a verb whose semantic agent and patient (typically represented syntactically by the subject and the direct object) are the same. For example, the English verb to perjure is reflexive, since one can only perjure oneself. In a wider sense, it refers to any verb form whose grammatical object is a reflexive pronoun, regardless of semantics; such verbs are also referred to as pronominal verbs (especially in grammar of Romance languages).
There are languages that have explicit morphology to transform a verb into a reflexive form. English employs reflexive derivation idiosyncratically, as in self-destroy; Romance languages do the same with the prefix auto-.
In many languages, reflexive constructions are rendered by transitive verbs followed by a reflexive pronoun, as in English -self (e.g., She threw herself to the floor.).
In the Romance languages, there are non-emphatic clitic reflexive pronouns and emphatic ones. In Spanish, for example, the particle se is cliticized to the verb (lavarse "to wash oneself"), while in Romanian, the particle precedes the verb (a se spăla "to wash oneself"). Full reflexive pronouns or pronominal phrases are added for emphasis or to avoid ambiguity: Yo me cuido a mí mismo "I take care of myself" (mí is the emphatic reflexive; mismo means "same", in the sense of "one's own (self)"). In French, the particle se is independent (se laver "to wash oneself").
Clitic reflexive pronoun sa/se/si/się is used in Western and South Slavic languages, while Eastern Slavic languages use suffix -sja (-ся). There is also the non-clitic emphatic pronoun sebe/себя, used to emphasize the reflexive nature of the act; it is applicable only to "true" reflexive verbs, where the agent performs a (transitive) action on itself.
The principal syntactic difference between the three language groups is that Slavic languages use the same reflexive pronoun in all three persons, while the Romance and Germanic languages maintain the distinction only in 3rd person; for the 1st and 2nd person, appropriate personal pronoun in oblique case is used:
In all three language groups, reflexive forms often present a great obstacle for foreign learners[4][5] (notably, native English speakers, where the feature is practically absent) due to variety of uses. Even in languages which contain the feature, it is not always applicable to the same verbs and uses (although a common subset can be generally extracted, as outlined below). For example, the Spanish reflexive construct se hundió el barco ("the boat sank") has no reflexive equivalent in Slavic languages (which use intransitive equivalent of sink).
Reflexive verbs can have the variety of uses and meanings, which often escape consistent classification. Some language-common identified uses are outlined below[6]. For example, Davies et al.[4] identify 12 uses for Spanish reflexive constructions; Vinogradov [7] divides Russian reflexive verbs into as many as 16 groups.
In many cases, there is a semantic overlap of the impersonal/anticausative/autocausative constructs with passive voice (also present in all Romance and Slavic languages)[10]. On one hand, impersonal reflexive constructs have a wider scope of application, as they are not limited to transitive verbs like the cannonical passive voice. On the other hand, those constructs can have slight semantic difference or markedness.
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Spanish, Castilian}}}
Writing system: Latin (Spanish variant)
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: —
ISO 639-3: —
Spanish (
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Ordinary English has seven personal pronouns:
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There are languages that have explicit morphology to transform a verb into a reflexive form. English employs reflexive derivation idiosyncratically, as in self-destroy; Romance languages do the same with the prefix auto-.
In many languages, reflexive constructions are rendered by transitive verbs followed by a reflexive pronoun, as in English -self (e.g., She threw herself to the floor.).
Romance and Slavic languages
Both Romance, Slavic and some Germanic languages make extensive use of reflexive verbs and reflexive forms.In the Romance languages, there are non-emphatic clitic reflexive pronouns and emphatic ones. In Spanish, for example, the particle se is cliticized to the verb (lavarse "to wash oneself"), while in Romanian, the particle precedes the verb (a se spăla "to wash oneself"). Full reflexive pronouns or pronominal phrases are added for emphasis or to avoid ambiguity: Yo me cuido a mí mismo "I take care of myself" (mí is the emphatic reflexive; mismo means "same", in the sense of "one's own (self)"). In French, the particle se is independent (se laver "to wash oneself").
Clitic reflexive pronoun sa/se/si/się is used in Western and South Slavic languages, while Eastern Slavic languages use suffix -sja (-ся). There is also the non-clitic emphatic pronoun sebe/себя, used to emphasize the reflexive nature of the act; it is applicable only to "true" reflexive verbs, where the agent performs a (transitive) action on itself.
The principal syntactic difference between the three language groups is that Slavic languages use the same reflexive pronoun in all three persons, while the Romance and Germanic languages maintain the distinction only in 3rd person; for the 1st and 2nd person, appropriate personal pronoun in oblique case is used:
| French | Danish | Serbo-Croatian | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| 1st person | Je me souviens | Nous nous souvenons | Jeg lægger mig | Vi lægger os | Ja se sjećam | Mi se sjećamo |
| 2nd person | Tu te souviens | Vous vous souvenez | Du lægger dig | I lægger jer | Ti se sjećaš | Vi se sjećate |
| 3rd person | Il se souvient | Ils se souviennent | Han lægger sig | De lægger sig | On se sjeća | Oni se sjećaju |
In all three language groups, reflexive forms often present a great obstacle for foreign learners[4][5] (notably, native English speakers, where the feature is practically absent) due to variety of uses. Even in languages which contain the feature, it is not always applicable to the same verbs and uses (although a common subset can be generally extracted, as outlined below). For example, the Spanish reflexive construct se hundió el barco ("the boat sank") has no reflexive equivalent in Slavic languages (which use intransitive equivalent of sink).
Reflexive verbs can have the variety of uses and meanings, which often escape consistent classification. Some language-common identified uses are outlined below[6]. For example, Davies et al.[4] identify 12 uses for Spanish reflexive constructions; Vinogradov [7] divides Russian reflexive verbs into as many as 16 groups.
"True"
"True" reflexive denotes that the agent is simultaneously the patient. The verb is typically transitive, and can be used in non-reflexive meaning as well.| Language | Examples | Compare |
|---|---|---|
| Spanish | Pedro se baña. | Pedro baña al gato. |
| Italian | Pietro si lava. | Pietro lava la gatta. |
| Serbo-Croatian | Petar se kupa. | Petar kupa mačku. |
| Polish | Piotr kąpie się. | Piotr kąpie kota. |
| Russian | Пётр купается. | Пётр купает котa. |
| Danish | Peter vasker sig. | Peter vasker katten. |
| English | Peter takes a bath. | Peter washes the cat. |
Reciprocal
"Reciprocal" reflexive denotes that the agents perform the mutual actions among themselves. In most cases, the transitive verbs are also used.| Language | Examples | Compare |
|---|---|---|
| Spanish | María y Pedro se besan. | María besa a Pedro. |
| Italian | Maria e Pietro si baciano. | Maria bacia Pietro. |
| Serbo-Croatian | Marija i Petar se ljube. | Marija ljubi Petra. |
| Polish | Maria i Piotr całują się. | Maria całuje Piotra. |
| Russian | Мария и Пётр целуются. | Мария целуeт Петрa. |
| English | Мaria and Peter kiss (each other). | Maria kisses Peter |
Anticausative
"Anticausative" reflexive denotes that the (usually, inanimate) patient of a causative verb becomes the subject, and the "", but the cause has been subtracted [8]| Spanish | La puerta se abrió. |
|---|---|
| Italian | La porta si aprì. |
| Serbo-Croatian | Vrata su se otvorila. |
| Polish | Drzwi otworzyły się. |
| Russian | Дверь открылась. |
| English | The door opened. |
Autocausative
"Autocausative" reflexive denotes that the (usually, animate) "the referent represented by the subject combines the activity of actor and undergoes a change of state like a patient[8]:| Language | Examples |
|---|---|
| Spanish | Pedro se ofendió. |
| Italian | Pietro si offese. |
| Serbo-Croatian | Petar se uvrijedio. |
| Polish | Piotr obraził się. |
| Russian | Пётр обиделся. |
| English | Peter became offended. |
Inherent
"Inherent" (inherently or essentially pronominal) reflexive verbs lack the corresponding non-reflexive from which they can be synchronically derived[8]. In other words, "se is an inherent part of an unergative reflexive or reciprocal verb with no meaning of its own, and an obligatory part of the verb's lexical entry"[9]:| Language | Examples | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spanish | Pedro se arrepintió. | [1] | Maria y Pedro se separaron.[2] | Pedro se queja. |
| Italian | Pietro si pentiva. | [1] | Maria e Pietro si separarono.[2] | Pietro si lamenta.[3] |
| Serbo-Croatian | Petar se pokajao. | Petar se smije. | Marija i Petar su se rastali. | Petar se žali.[3] |
| Polish | [1] | Piotr śmieje się. | Maria i Piotr rozstali się. | Piotr żali się.[3] |
| Russian | Пётр раскаялся. | Пётр cмеётся. | Мария и Пётр расстались. | Пётр жалуeтся.[3] |
| English | Peter repented. | Peter laughs. | Maria and Peter parted. | Peter complains. |
- ^[a/B>]] The corresponding verb is not reflexive
- ^[b/B>]] The verb is reflexive, but not inherently; the transitive equivalent means "to separate". Note the reciprocal semantics.
- ^[c/B>]] Only the Spanish quejarse exists only in reflexive form; however, in other languages, the corresponding non-reflexive verb has a different meaning, like "lament" or "mourn"
Intransitive or Impersonal
"Intransitive" form (also known as "reflexive impersonal", or mediopassive) take the intransitive verbs with omitted agent. In Slavic languages, practically "the only condition is that they can be construed as having a human agent. The applied human agent can be generic, or loosely specified collective or individual"[10]. The grammatical subject is either omitted (in pro-drop languages) or dummy pronoun (otherwise). Thus, those verbs are defective, as they have only the 3rd person singular (masculine or neutrum, depending on language) form.| Language | Examples | |
|---|---|---|
| Spanish | Aquí se trabaja bien. | Se dice que... |
| Italian | Qui si lavora bene. | Si dice che... |
| Serbo-Croatian | Tu se radi dobro. | Smatra se da... |
| Polish | Tam pracuje się dobrze. | Myśli się, że... |
| Russian | Здесь хорошо работается. | Думается, что... |
| English | Here [people] work well. | It is thought that... |
In many cases, there is a semantic overlap of the impersonal/anticausative/autocausative constructs with passive voice (also present in all Romance and Slavic languages)[10]. On one hand, impersonal reflexive constructs have a wider scope of application, as they are not limited to transitive verbs like the cannonical passive voice. On the other hand, those constructs can have slight semantic difference or markedness.
Germanic languages
Many Germanic languages express reflexivity in a similar way to English, but without an explicit reflexive suffix corresponding to -self, i. e., simply using the accusative pronoun, as in German: Ich wasche mich ("I wash myself", lit. "I wash me").External links
- edited by R. M. W. Dixon & A. Y. Aikhenvald. Changing valency: Case studies in transitivity. Research Centre for Linguistic Typology, Le Trobe University, Melbourne.
References
4. ^ Mark Davies, James Jones, Nicole Tracy. Syntactic features, register variation, and the language learner: the case of se in Spanish...
5. ^ Reflexive Verbs: An Introduction. About.com:Spanish Language.
6. ^ María Luisa Rivero & Milena M. Sheppard. On Impersonal se / się in Slavic. Current Issues in Formal Slavic Linguistics. G. Zybatow, et al., Eds. 137-147. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main. 2002..
7. ^ V. V. Vinogradov. Russkiy Yazik.
8. ^ Mair Parry. The Reinterpretation of the Reflexive in Piedmontese: Impersonal 'Se' Constructions. Transactions of the Philological Society, Vol.96:1 (1998) (63-116).
9. ^ Grahek, Sabina (2002). "Alternating unaccusative verbs in Slovene". Leeds Working Papers in Linguistics 9: 57-72.
10. ^ Milja Djurkovic. Passive and Impersonal in English and Serbian. Research Centre for English and Applied Linguistics University of Cambridge.
5. ^ Reflexive Verbs: An Introduction. About.com:Spanish Language.
6. ^ María Luisa Rivero & Milena M. Sheppard. On Impersonal se / się in Slavic. Current Issues in Formal Slavic Linguistics. G. Zybatow, et al., Eds. 137-147. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main. 2002..
7. ^ V. V. Vinogradov. Russkiy Yazik.
8. ^ Mair Parry. The Reinterpretation of the Reflexive in Piedmontese: Impersonal 'Se' Constructions. Transactions of the Philological Society, Vol.96:1 (1998) (63-116).
9. ^ Grahek, Sabina (2002). "Alternating unaccusative verbs in Slovene". Leeds Working Papers in Linguistics 9: 57-72.
10. ^ Milja Djurkovic. Passive and Impersonal in English and Serbian. Research Centre for English and Applied Linguistics University of Cambridge.
See also
Grammar is the study of the rules governing the use of a given natural language, and as such a field of linguistics. Traditionally, grammar included morphology and syntax, in modern linguistics commonly expanded by the subfields of phonetics, phonology, orthography, semantics, and
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verb is a word belonging to the part of speech that usually denotes an action (bring, read), an occurrence (decompose, glitter), or a state of being (exist, stand).
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theta role or θ-role is the formal device for representing syntactic argument structure (the number and type of noun phrases) required syntactically by a particular verb. For example, the verb put requires three arguments (i.e., it is ditransitive).
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English}}}
Writing system: Latin (English variant)
Official status
Official language of: 53 countries
Regulated by: no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1: en
ISO 639-2: eng
ISO 639-3: eng
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Writing system: Latin (English variant)
Official status
Official language of: 53 countries
Regulated by: no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1: en
ISO 639-2: eng
ISO 639-3: eng
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An object in grammar is a sentence element and part of the sentence predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb. As an example, the following sentence is given:
In the sentence "Bobby kicked the ball
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In the sentence "Bobby kicked the ball
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reflexive pronoun is a pronoun that is preceded by the noun or pronoun to which it refers (its antecedent) within the same clause. In generative grammar, a reflexive pronoun is an anaphor that must be bound by its antecedent (see binding).
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For other uses, see Morphology.
Morphology is the field within linguistics that studies the internal structure of words. (Words as units in the lexicon are the subject matter of lexicology...... Click the link for more information.
Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family that comprisies all the languages that descend from Latin, the language of the Roman Empire.
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In syntax, a transitive verb is a verb that requires both a subject and one or more objects. Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs:
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- Kyle sees Adam. (Adam is the direct object of "sees")
- You lifted the bag.
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reflexive pronoun is a pronoun that is preceded by the noun or pronoun to which it refers (its antecedent) within the same clause. In generative grammar, a reflexive pronoun is an anaphor that must be bound by its antecedent (see binding).
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Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family that comprisies all the languages that descend from Latin, the language of the Roman Empire.
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Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of
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Germanic languages are a group of related languages constituting a branch of the Indo-European (IE) language family. The common ancestor of all languages comprising this branch is Proto-Germanic, spoken in approximately the latter mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age Northern Europe.
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Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family that comprisies all the languages that descend from Latin, the language of the Roman Empire.
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In linguistics, a clitic is an element that has some of the properties of an independent word and some more typical of a bound morpheme. Many clitics can be understood as elements undergoing a historical process of grammaticalization:[1]
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Spanish, Castilian}}}
Writing system: Latin (Spanish variant)
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: —
ISO 639-3: —
Spanish (
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Romanian}}}
Official status
Official language of: Moldova [2]
Romania
Vojvodina (Serbia)
European Union
Regulated by: Academia Română
Language codes
ISO 639-1: ro
ISO 639-2: rum (B)
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Official status
Official language of: Moldova [2]
Romania
Vojvodina (Serbia)
European Union
Regulated by: Academia Română
Language codes
ISO 639-1: ro
ISO 639-2: rum (B)
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French (français, pronounced [fʁɑ̃ˈsɛ]) is a Romance language originally spoken in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Switzerland, and today by about 300 million people around the world as either
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Markedness is a linguistic concept that developed out of the Prague School (also known as the Prague linguistic circle).
A marked form is a non-basic or less natural form. An unmarked form is a basic, default form.
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A marked form is a non-basic or less natural form. An unmarked form is a basic, default form.
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A language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language. As with biological families, the evidence of relationship is observable shared characteristics.
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Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to the participant role of a referent, such as the speaker, the addressee, and others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns.
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English personal pronouns
Ordinary English has seven personal pronouns:
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An oblique case (Latin: casus generalis) in linguistics is a noun case of synthetic languages that is used generally when a noun is the object of a sentence or a preposition.
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theta role or θ-role is the formal device for representing syntactic argument structure (the number and type of noun phrases) required syntactically by a particular verb. For example, the verb put requires three arguments (i.e., it is ditransitive).
..... Click the link for more information.
..... Click the link for more information.
theta role or θ-role is the formal device for representing syntactic argument structure (the number and type of noun phrases) required syntactically by a particular verb. For example, the verb put requires three arguments (i.e., it is ditransitive).
..... Click the link for more information.
..... Click the link for more information.
In syntax, a transitive verb is a verb that requires both a subject and one or more objects. Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs:
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- Kyle sees Adam. (Adam is the direct object of "sees")
- You lifted the bag.
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A reciprocal is a linguistic structure that marks a particular kind of relationship between two noun phrases. In a reciprocal construction, each of the participants occupies both the role of agent and patient with respect to each other.
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An anticausative verb is an intransitive verb that shows an event affecting its subject, while giving no semantic or syntactic indication of the cause of the event. The single argument of the anticausative verb (its subject) is a patient, that is, an experiencer.
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The impersonal passive voice is a verb voice that decreases the valency of an intransitive verb (which has valency one) to zero.
The impersonal passive deletes the subject of an intransitive verb.
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The impersonal passive deletes the subject of an intransitive verb.
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The mediopassive voice is a grammatical voice which subsumes the meanings of both the middle voice and the passive voice.
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Examples of the Mediopassive
The Proto-Indo-European language is typically reconstructed as having two voices, active and mediopassive, where the..... Click the link for more information.
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Herod_Archelaus
