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Reflexive and reciprocal pronouns

quickinfo

Reflexive pronouns express the notion that somebody or something is doing something (i.e. an action) to oneself:

Tom skeart him

Tom is shaving himself

Reciprocals are used if two people or things act on each other:

Tom en Lisette kenne inoar

Tom and Lisette know each other

This means that Tom knows Lisette, and that Lisette knows Tom.

The rest of this topic gives an overview of the forms and use of the reflexive and reciprocal pronouns in Frisian.

Forms
Use of reflexive pronouns
Use of reciprocal pronouns

[+]Forms

The reflexive pronoun has two sets of forms. The first set, sometimes called "neutral", has a form which is identical to personal pronouns in object position. As reflexives are not in focus, it is usually the weak form of the personal pronoun that is selected. Hence, in an example as do fersinst dy you.NOM mistake-INFL you.REFL you make a mistake the pronunciation of dy is [di] and not [dɛ.i̯]. The second set consists of the forms of the first set plus the element -sels self. The paradigm for the reflexive pronouns is given in the table below:

Table 1

		Singular		Plural
		neutral form	-sels-form	neutral form	-sels-form
1st person		my /mi/ my	mysels /misɛls/ myself	ús /ys/ our	ússels /ysɛls/ ourselves
2nd person	informal	dy /di/ you	dysels /disɛls/ yourself	jim /jɪm/ you	jimsels /jɪmsɛls/ yourselves
	polite	jo /jo/ you	josels /josɛls/ yourself
3rd person	masculine	him /hɪm/ him	himsels /hɪmsɛls/ himself
	feminine	har /hɑr/ her	harsels /hɑrsɛls/ herself	har /hɑr/ them	harsels /hɑrsɛls/ themselves

Next to these correlates of the object forms of personal pronouns, there is the reflexive form of the impersonal pronoun men one, which is jin yours. In Frisian dictionary entries, this is the form that is used to indicate that a verb is reflexive.

Although the form of the reflexive pronoun is identical to the object form of the personal prouns, a partial exception must be made for the third person female singular and the third person plural. These categories have next to the form har also a weak form se (more information personal pronouns). This form se is not allowed as a reflexive, however:

Hja waskje har/*se

They wash themselves

extra

Dutch influence

The special Dutch third person reflexive form zich him-/her-/it-/themselves does not exist in Frisian (see Reuland (2000), De Jong (1985) and De Jong (1987)). However, under the influence of Dutch it is not uncommon that sentences like the following are heard in the speech of Frisian speakers:

*Pier hatet sichsels

Pier hates himself

*Dêryn fersinne se sich

there.in mistake they themself

They are mistaken at this point

A few examples of neutral forms and -sels-forms are given below (see the section use for some remarks on the choice between the two).

Ik ha my stompt

I have me bumped

I've bumped into something

Ik ha mysels yn 'e finger snien

I have myself in the finger cut

I cut my finger

Klaai dy gau oan

dress you quickly on

Get dressed quickly

Lit dysels sjen

let yourself see

Show yourself

Wy sette de koffer neist ús op 'e grûn

we put the suitcase next us on the ground

We are putting the suitcase on the floor next to ourselves

Sille wy ússels traktearje op in diner?

shall we ourself treat on a dinner

Shall we treat ourselves to a dinner?

The choice between him him and har her is based on the semantics of the coreferential noun. In the following example the two nouns are grammatically neuter, but they show a different reflexive pronoun. In (a), famke girl has a female interpretation, and hence it invokes the pronoun har. In (b), hûntsje dog.DIM.N little dog is an animal. Animals always take the masculine reflexive pronoun him:

It famke fersinde har

the girl mistook her

The girl was mistaken

It hûntsje ferfeelde him

the dog.DIM bored him

The little dog was bored

The reciprocal pronoun may appear as elkoar, inoar and mekoar, all meaning each other. These reciprocals may be extended by a suffix -en in mekoarren, inoarren and elkoarren. These longer forms have the same meaning as their bare counterparts.

The reciprocal pronoun has a genitive (possessive) form with the suffix -s. Examples are:

Hja hawwe inoars lichem fernield

they have each others body destroyed

They destroyed each other's bodies

Piter en Sibe koene inoarrens wiif net

Piter and Sive knew.PL each others wife not

Piter and Sibe did not know each other's wife

[+]Use of reflexive pronouns

Reflexive pronouns can be used to indicate that an entity is acting on themselves. The choice between the neutral forms and the -sels-forms depends on many factors which cannot be explained here exhaustively. They are a matter of syntax. Stressed pronouns are often -sels-forms. When the reflexive occurs with a preposition, we usually find the -sels-form too: oan jinsels tinke to think of oneself, op jinsels stean to stand by oneself, op jinsels fertrouwe to trust oneself.

Certain reflexive verbs, on the other hand, require the reflexive pronoun jin as obligatory element. Then the neutral form without -sels is used. Examples are:

jin fersinne

to be mistaken

jin ferfele

to be bored

jin fersliepe

to oversleep

Verbal expressions with of a light verb can have the same property, for example in jin soargen meitsje to be worried. The example below shows an obligatorily reflexive verbal complex. Here the preposition may be responsible for the choice of the reflexive with -sels:

ta jinsels komme

to one-self come

to find peace

With other verbs, the reflexive is not obligatory, as free chosen objects are also possible. For example, there is the reflexive jin oanklaaie to get dressed that may alternate with immen oanklaaie to dress somebody (else).

extra

Syntax

More details about the reflexive pronouns from a syntactic point of view can be found in the topic reflexive pronouns and the emphatic adverbial modifier sels.

[+]Use of reciprocal pronouns

The reciprocal pronouns are used to indicate an action in which the participants both act as agent and patient with respect to each other. For example:

Fan inoar hâlde

of each.other keep

To love each other

Dy jonges pleagje inoar altyd

those guys tease each.other always

Those guys are always teasing each other

In other cases, the semantics of interaction between a noun and a reciprocal is less clear. In efterinoar ride to ride one after the other or de skilderijen hingje ûnderinoar the paintings were hanging below each other, there is an asymmetry between the participants: one is behind or below the other, without reciprocity (there is no reciprocal action).

In other cases, there is only one participant, which means that the construction is idiomatic, as in immen trochinoar skodzje to shake somebody, yninoar sakje to collapse or jin útinoar wurkje work oneself to death.

If the reciprocal occurs in an Adposition Phrase (PP), it is written as one word together with its preceding preposition. In contrast to Dutch (a), the stress falls on the preposition in Frisian (b):

met elKAAR

with each other

meiinoar

with each other

extra

Literature

See for more details about stress of the reciprocals Hoekstra (1991) and Tamminga (1963:60)). Syntactic aspects are discussed in the topic on the reciprocal pronoun.

References

Hoekstra, Jarich1991Oer it beklamjen fan ferhâldingswurden yn it Frysk, it Hollânsk en it IngelskUs Wurk4067-103
Jong, Jan de1985Doe sei de plysjeman: Dêryn fergisse se sich noch steedsFrysk en Frij21-1255
Jong, Jan de1987'Sich' bestiet yn it Frysk netFrysk en Frij17-10.
Reuland, Eric2000Anaphoric relationsFrajzyngier, Z. & Curl, T.S. (eds.)Reflexives: Forms and FunctionsBenjamins1-40
Tamminga, Douwe Annes1963Op 'e taelhelling. Losse trochsneden fan Frysk taellibben. IBoalsertA.J. Osinga

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About this article

Author(s): Siebren Dyk, Joke Weening

Category: Frisian Morphology

Keywords: reflexivereciprocal

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