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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 more broadly referred to as pronominal verbs , especially in the grammar of the Romance languages .
Reflexivity may be expressed by means of: reflexive pronouns or reflexive verbs. The latter ones may be constructed with the help of reflexive affixes (e.g., in Russian) or reflective particles (e.g., in Polish).
A reflexive pronoun is a pronoun that refers to another noun or pronoun (its antecedent) within the same sentence.. In the English language specifically, a reflexive pronoun will end in -self or -selves, and refer to a previously named noun or pronoun (myself, yourself, ourselves, themselves, etc.).
An example sentence is El padre se enojó al ver a su hijo romper la lámpara. The English translation is "The father became angry upon seeing his son break the lamp." The verb se enojó is said to be mediopassive because it comprises the reflexive pronoun se and the simple verb enojó, which together literally mean "angered himself." This ...
Most Indo-European languages do not have special reciprocal affixes on verbs, and mutual relations are expressed through reflexive constructions or other mechanisms. For example, Russian reciprocal constructions have the suffix -sja (-ся, 'self'), which also has reflexive and passive interpretations.
In example (4b) with the reflexive anaphor, the embedded clause's complementizer phrase (CP) beginning with the word "if", cannot introduce a subject noun phrase. Although in many cases, either a reflexive or a reciprocal pronoun could appear in the same structural position, in some cases, the asymmetry occurs when a reciprocal may be bound to ...
For example, if there is a stative verb to be large, the causative will mean to enlarge, to make grow. The reflexive form of the causative can then be used to mean to enlarge oneself, or even as a middle voice, to grow. As far as lexical causatives are concerned, English has at least 49 causative verbs.
The following pair of examples illustrates the contrast between active and passive voice in English. In sentence (1), the verb form ate is in the active voice, but in sentence (2), the verb form was eaten is in the passive voice. Independent of voice, the cat is the Agent (the doer) of the action of eating in both sentences.