Reflexive verb
In grammar, a reflexive verb is, loosely, a verb whose direct object is the same as its subject; for example, "I wash myself". More generally, a reflexive verb has the same semantic agent and patient. For example, the English verb to perjure is reflexive, since one can only perjure oneself. In a wider sense, the term 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 grammars of the Romance languages. In the Romance languages, the pronominal verbs is a parent category with reflexive verbs as only one of its sub-categories. Other kinds of pronominal verbs are reciprocal, passive, subjective, idiomatic. The presence of the reflexive pronoun changes the meaning of a verb, e.g. Spanish abonar to pay, abonarse to subscribe.
There are languages that have explicit morphology or syntax to transform a verb into a reflexive form. In many languages, reflexive constructions are rendered by transitive verbs followed by a reflexive pronoun, as in English -self English employs reflexive derivation idiosyncratically, as in "self-destruct".
Indo-European languages
and Slavic 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 encliticizes to the verb's infinitive, gerund, and imperative, while in Romanian, the particle procliticizes to the verb. Full reflexive pronouns or pronominal phrases are added for emphasis or disambiguation: Me cuido a mí mismo "I take care of myself".
The enclitic reflexive pronoun sa/se/si/się is used in Western and South Slavic languages, while Eastern Slavic languages use the suffix -sja. There is also the non-clitic emphatic pronoun sebja/себя, used to emphasize the reflexive nature of the act; it is applicable only to "true" reflexive verbs, where the agent performs a action on itself.
The Slavic languages use the same reflexive pronoun for all persons and numbers, while the Romance and North Germanic ones have a special third person pronoun that cliticizes and the other Germanic ones do as well without cliticizing. This is illustrated in the following table for the word "to recall".
In all of these language groups, reflexive forms often present an obstacle for foreign learners due to the variety of uses. Even in languages which contain the feature, it is not always applicable to the same verbs and uses. For example, the Spanish reflexive construct "se hundió el barco" has no reflexive equivalent in some Slavic languages, though for example Czech and Slovak do use a reflexive verb: "loď se potopila"/"loď sa potopila".
Reflexive verbs can have a variety of uses and meanings, which often escape consistent classification. Some language-common identified uses are outlined below. For example, Davies et al. identify 12 uses for Spanish reflexive constructions, while Vinogradov divides Russian reflexive verbs into as many as 16 groups.
Martin Haspelmath also has a useful distinction between the reflexive types mentioned below, which he calls introverted reflexives, and so called extroverted reflexives, which are used for verbs that are usually not reflexive, like hate oneself, love oneself, hear oneself, and kill oneself. Some Indo-European languages have a different reflexive morpheme for extroverted reflexives. For example:
- See how the Russian ненавидеть себя "to hate oneself", which uses a reflexive pronoun, compares to мыться "to wash ", which uses a reflexive suffix.
- Or Dutch "zij haat zichzelf" "she hates herself", versus "zij wast zich" "she washes ".
- The distinction exists similarly in English, where introverted reflexive verbs usually have no reflexive pronoun, unlike extroverted.
- In ancient Greek, the introverted reflexive was expressed using the middle voice rather than a pronoun. Similarly, in modern Greek, it is expressed using the middle usage of the passive voice. On the other hand, the extroverted reflexive was a true reflexive in ancient Greek and modern Greek.
- Similarly Claire Moyse-Faurie distinguishes between middle and reflexive in Oceanic languages in her on-line articles about reflexives in Oceanic languages.
Properly reflexive
| Language | Examples | Compare |
| French | Pierre se lave | Pierre lave le chat |
| Spanish | Pedro se lava. | Pedro lava el gato. |
| Italian | Pietro si lava. | Pietro lava il gatto. |
| Catalan | En Pere es renta. | En Pere renta el gat. |
| Galician | Pedro lávase. | Pedro lava o gato. |
| Serbo-Croatian | Petar se kupa. | Petar kupa mačku. |
| Slovene | Peter se umiva. | Peter umiva mačko. |
| Polish | Piotr się kąpie. | Piotr kąpie kota. |
| Russian | Пётр моется. Pyotr moyetsya. | Пётр моет котa. Pyotr moyet kota. |
| German | Peter wäscht sich. | Peter wäscht die Katze. |
| Danish | Peter vasker sig. | Peter vasker katten. |
| Lithuanian | Petras prausiasi. | Petras prausia katę. |
| Lithuanian | Petras prausia save. | Petras prausia katę. |
| English | Peter washes himself. | Peter washes the cat. |
| Hebrew | פיטר מתקלח. Piter mitkaleah. | פיטר מקלח את החתול. Piter mekaleah et hahatul. |
Reciprocal
"Reciprocal" reflexive denotes that the agents perform the mutual actions among themselves, as in English constructions using "each other". In most cases, the transitive verbs are also used.| Language | Examples | Compare |
| French | Marie et Pierre s'embrassent | Marie embrasse Pierre |
| Spanish | María y Pedro se besan. | María besa a Pedro. |
| Italian | Maria e Pietro si baciano. | Maria bacia Pietro. |
| Catalan | La Maria i en Pere es fan un petó. | La Maria fa un petó en Pere. |
| Galician | María e Pedro bícanse. | María bica a Pedro. |
| Serbo-Croatian | Marija i Petar se ljube. | Marija ljubi Petra. |
| Slovene | Marija in Petar se poljubita. | Marija poljubi Petra. |
| Polish | Maria i Piotr się całują. | Maria całuje Piotra. |
| Russian | Мария и Пётр целуются. Mariya i Pyotr tseluyutsya. | Мария целуeт Петрa. Mariya tseluyet Petra. |
| Danish | Maria og Peter kysser hinanden. | Maria kysser Peter. |
| Lithuanian | Marija ir Petras bučiuojasi. | Marija bučiuoja Petrą. |
| English | Мary and Peter kiss . | Mary kisses Peter. |
In modern Scandinavian languages, the passive voice is used for medial, especially reciprocal, constructions. Some examples from Danish are
is not often—if ever—seen in Danish; however, it will likely be understood by most native speakers, indicating that the mediopassive voice is still at the very least potentially productive in Danish. An expression like "de kysses uafladeligt"
Autocausative
"Autocausative" reflexive denotes that the "referent represented by the subject combines the activity of actor and undergoes a change of state as a patient":| Language | Examples |
| Spanish | Pedro se ofendió. |
| Italian | Pietro si offese. |
| Catalan | En Pere es va ofendre. |
| Galician | Pedro ofendeuse. |
| Serbo-Croatian | Petar se uvrijedio. |
| Slovene | Peter se je užalil. |
| Polish | Piotr się obraził. |
| Russian | Пётр обиделся. Pyotr obidelsya. |
| German | Peter ärgerte sich. |
| Lithuanian | Petras įsižeidė. |
| English | Peter became/was offended. |
Anticausative
"Anticausative" reflexive denotes that the subject of the verb undergoes an action or change of state whose agent is unclear or nonexistent.| Language | Examples |
| Spanish | La puerta se abrió. |
| Italian | La porta si aprì. |
| Catalan | La porta es va obrir. |
| Galician | A porta abriuse. |
| Serbo-Croatian | Vrata su se otvorila. |
| Slovene | Vrata so se odprla. |
| Polish | Drzwi się otworzyły. |
| Russian | Дверь открылась. Dver' otkrylas'. |
| German | Die Tür öffnete sich. |
| Lithuanian | Durys atsidarė. |
| English | The door opened. |
Intransitive or Impersonal
"Intransitive" forma 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." The grammatical subject is either omitted or dummy pronoun. Thus, those verbs are defective, as they have only the 3rd person singular form.In many cases, there is a semantic overlap between impersonal/anticausative/autocausative constructs and the passive voice. On one hand, impersonal reflexive constructs have a wider scope of application, as they are not limited to transitive verbs like the canonical passive voice. On the other hand, those constructs can have slight semantic difference or markedness.
Inherent
"Inherent" or "pronominal" reflexive verbs lack the corresponding non-reflexive from which they can be synchronically derived. 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":Hebrew
In Hebrew reflexive verbs are in binyan הִתְפַּעֵל. A clause whose predicate is a reflexive verb may never have an object but may have other modifiers. e.g.- האיש התפטר מעבודתו - the man resigned from his job
- האיש התמכר לסמים - the man got addicted to drugs
- האיש התקלח בבוקר - the man 'showered himself', i.e., took/had a shower in the morning
- האישה הסתפרה אצל אבי - the woman took a haircut/had her hair done at Avi's
Inuktitut
Australian Languages">Australian Aboriginal languages">Australian Languages
Guugu Yimithirr">Guugu Yimithirr language">Guugu Yimithirr
In Guugu Yimithirr reflexivity can combine with past, nonpast, and imperative tense marking to form the verbal suffixes: /-dhi/, /-yi/ and /-ya/ respectively. See the following example where the verb waarmbal, a transitive verb meaning 'send back' is detransitivized to mean 'return' taking only one nominal argument with an agentive role:The same valence-reduction process occurs for the transitive wagil 'cut'
In each of these cases, the reflexively-inflected verb now forms a new stem to which additional morphology may be affixed, for example waarmba-adhi 'returned' may become waarmba-adhi-lmugu 'didn't return.' As with many Pama–Nyungan languages, however, verbs in the lexicon belong to conjugation classes, and a verbs class may restrict the ease with which it can be reflexivized.
These reflexive morphemes are largely employed for expressing reciprocality as well; however, in cases where there is potential ambiguity between a reflexive and a reciprocal interpretation, Guugu Yimithirr has an additional means for emphasizing the reflexive interpretation: namely, the /-gu/ suffix upon the grammatical subject. See for example the following contrast between the reciprocal and reflexive:
Reciprocal
Reflexive
Gumbaynggir">Gumbaynggir language">Gumbaynggir
Another Pama–Nyungan language, Gumbaynggir has a verbal suffix /-iri/ to mark reciprocality and de-transitivize transitive verbs e.g.Kuuk Thaayorre">Kuuk Thaayorre language">Kuuk Thaayorre
As with Guugu Yimithirr, Kuuk Thaayorre, a Paman language, has some ambiguity between reflexive and reciprocal morphemes and constructions. Ostensibly, there are two suffixes /-e/ and /-rr/ for reflexivity and reciprocality respectively; however, in practice it is less clear cut. Take for example the presence of the reciprocal suffix in what should seem like a simple reflexive example.Or the reverse wherein an apparent reciprocal assertion has reflexive morphology
In actuality, the broader function of the reciprocal verb is to emphasize the agentivity of the grammatical subject, sometimes to directly counteract expectations of an external agent--as in the first example above. The combination of the reciprocal verb with the reflexive pronoun highlights the notion that the subject acted highly agentively but was also the undergoer of their own action.
Conversely, the reflexive verb can have precisely this function of backgrounding the agentivity of the subject and bringing the focus to the effect that was wrought upon the undergoer as in the second example above.