Chapter 13

RULE 1: Reflexive pronouns must agree in person and number with the subject.

RULE 2: In English, intensive pronouns tend to follow their antecedents; reflexives almost never do.

I. Grammar

Distinguishing English forms will pose students as much trouble here as learning the Latin ones. Point out that Latin in this instance is more "logical" than English since the Romans differentiate between intensive and reflexive pronouns. You will find that most students have never considered the two discrete grammatical uses of English -self forms and that you will have to clear up this point before you can explain the Latin forms.

Give the students a sentence in which the contrasting uses of a form ending in -self are evident, e.g. Cicero himself praised himself. Ask students how the two himself's function in the sentence. The first one intensifies Cicero: "Cicero—not his wife, not his daughter, not his press secretary—but Cicero himself . . ." The second reflects the action of the verb back on the subject: "Cicero's praise is being brought back on himself." The worksheet on reflexives will help reinforce this distinction (see below), but first make sure you've clarified the difference between English -self forms.

A. Reflexive Pronouns

Reflexive forms "reflect" the action of the verb back onto the subject. Again Latin is simpler to understand than English here. In English, you must say, "I praise myself." "I praise me" is looked down on, even though it is not illogical and the meaning is clear. The same is true for "You praised you"—sensible as it is, it's simply not done. Since in all but the most sinister contexts the identity of "I/me" and "you" is no secret, a special reflexive form is not really necessary for first and second persons, but in the third person, where "he/him" is not always as easily determined in context and "He praised him" could mean "He praised himself" or "He praised someone else," a reflexive form creates an important distinction.

Latin makes this distinction only where it's necessary (third person) and doesn't where it's not (first and second person). Latin says, "I praise me (who is myself, of course)" and "You praise you (who is yourself, naturally)," but distinguishes between "He praises him (someone else)" and "He praises himself (the subject)." Therefore, the Latin reflexive forms in the first and second persons (singular and plural) are identical with the personal pronouns, and in the third person (singular and plural) they aren't. Of course, since reflexive pronouns reflect the subject, they can't be subjects ("Yourselves did it"?) and thus don't manifest any nominative forms. Finally, Latin uses the same forms of the reflexive pronoun in the singular and plural of the third person, because it's obvious from context whether the subject is singular or plural. It's all very logical and typically Roman.

More than one student of mine has remarked that the reflexive forms (sui, sibi, se, se) sound like the speaker's calling the pigs home. I say, if that works to help them learn these forms, use it. Needless to say, the formation of the reflexive pronouns has in my experience caused fewer problems than their proper usage and translation. Go through Wheelock's examples on page 61 in detail and point out the difference between reflexive and non-reflexive forms (the odd-numbered sentences are reflexive; the even-numbered are non-reflexive). Also note that, when se is the object of the preposition cum, the normal order of preposition and object are reversed and the words are written as one, secum, cf. mecum, tecum, nobiscum, vobiscum.

B. Reflexive Possessive Adjectives

Quite a mouthful for something so simple as "my own," the reflexive possessive adjectives in Latin work in much the same way as reflexive pronouns. They "reflect" the subject and thus must match it in person and number. The first and second person forms (singular and plural) are identical to their personal possessive counterparts (meus, tuus, noster, vester). The third-person forms (singular and plural) differ from the personal possessive forms, suus, -a, -um versus eius/eorum/earum, respectively. Stress the difference between "He has his (someone else's) book" (= eius) and "He has his (own) book" (= suum). [Some enterprising soul is bound to ask, "If it's true that, unless stated otherwise, possession in Latin is implied from the subject (e.g. librum habet implies "He has his (own) book"), why did the Romans need reflexive possessive adjectives at all?" The easiest answer for the freshman Latin mind to grasp is that reflexive forms stress possession by the subject (e.g. "I have my own book (not anyone else's). Do you have your own book (not someone else's)?"). It's the same as the difference between admitting to a crime and silently not denying it.]

Because reflexive possessive adjectives can refer to the subject of a previous clause or sentence, they can be nominative, unlike their pronominal reflexive counterparts, e.g. "He was a mean old man, and when he died, his (own) wife and dog danced with delight." Note to students that the reflexive possessive adjective must agree in gender with its referent, not the subject, e.g. in the sentence just above the reflexives would be "sua (mulier)" and, assuming the dog is male, "suus (canis)."

C. Intensive Pronouns

Intensive pronouns constitute the non-reflexive use of -self forms in English. Review its relatively simple formation with students. Note that, whereas reflexive pronouns in English tend to have a verb between the pronoun and its referent (the subject), English intensives tend to follow closely behind the word to which they refer (e.g. the teacher himself, the coffin itself, the vampires themselves). However, in reality things are never that easy. Intensives in English can and often do come at the end of a sentence, e.g. "He learned Latin himself." Himself in this sentence obviously does not apply to Latin—if so, it would be itself—rather, it's an intensive pronoun going with the subject ("He learned Latin and did not hire someone to translate it for him."). So, before translating an English -self form into Latin, students must always be careful to ask themselves how it's functioning in a sentence: "Is it reflecting action back on the subject (if so, it's a reflexive), or is it saying that someone is doing something for himself, with his own hands (if so, it's an intensive)?"

D. History of Reflexives and Intensives

The reflexive pronoun followed much the same history as personal pronouns, like me and te (see Chapter 11). The Indo-European base of suus was *su-, coming into Greek as he and hos he hon (the intensive, not the relative pronoun), with a short vowel and the expected replacement of initial sigma (s-) by an aspirate (h-).

The -s- in ipse, ipsa, ipsum probably goes back to this same base. The -p- there is a glide consonant inserted to ease pronunciation, cf. sumo > sumpsi. After -(p)s- was combined with the archaic forms of is, ea, id—both eumpsum and eampsam are attested in early Latin—it was later assimilated to iste and ille. Eventually the first half of the compound (the is/ea/id part) was no longer declined. Complete assimilation was achieved only in late Latin when the form ipsud first begin to occur regularly.

E. Handout

After you explain the above, your students' heads will be swimming in grammatical terms. Seeing the practical application of this grammar will help reinforce the difference between intensives and reflexives. Click here for a worksheet on reflexive and intensive pronouns.

II. Vocabulary

• Cicero: Of third declension—what else?—the name is derived from the word for "chick-pea, garbanzo bean," a local cognomen of local origin.
• nomen: Cognate with Gk. onoma and Eng. name.
• suus, -a, -um: The plural used as a substantive, "one's own," can refer to one's friends, relatives or possessions.
• ante: Takes an accusative object. It can carry either temporal or locative sense. Although cognate with Gk. anti-, ante carries a different connotation, cf. ante-Christian vs. anti-Christian.
• numquam: = ne + umquam; students should learn umquam along with numquam.
• per: Takes an accusative object. Cognate with Gk. peri, but like ante it does not share meaning with its Greek counterpart.
• iungo: The base iug- with nasal infix; see Chapter 12. Here the nasal infix is retained in the perfect base (iunx-).
• diligo: = dis- + lego, "to choose apart." It's a nice way to express one's admiration and love for someone, saying that person is the one you "choose out of all the rest."

III. Sentences

Practice and Review

6. per se is idiomatic for "in and of oneself," an English expression borrowed from Latin.

8. An opportunity for a digression on the escapades of Augustus' daughter Julia and the poet Ovid's carmen and error. If Augustus couldn't, can anyone ever legislate morality?

10. Invariably, miserat throws someone in the class off, who tries to break it apart as miser/at: "His own writing suffered before that time."(???) [In one class when I asked one young lady what she thought that translation meant, she said proudly, "It means before we took Latin." —10 points for style, 0 for grammar!]

13. Students must know beforehand that secum, not cum se, is the proper Latin form.

IV. Quiz 5