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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.
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" (sí is the emphatic reflexive, mismo means "same", in the same of "one's own (self)"). In French, the particle se is independent (se laver "to wash oneself").
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").
In Russian, many transitive verbs can be converted into intransitive verbs by the addition of the suffix -ся (sya), which is a contraction of the pronoun себя (which refers to the subject of the verb). Thus, for example, the verb одеть(odety) means "to dress (someone)", while одеться(odetysya) means "to dress oneself". All verbs ending -ся are intransitive, incapable of taking an object in the accusative case, but not all verbs ending -ся can be converted into transitive verbs by deleting the ending. For example, while смеяться(smeyatysya) means "to laugh", there is no verb like смеять(smeyaty). Many such verbs describe intrinsically intransitive actions; there is no way to "laugh someone", for example.
See also
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