☞ ✔️2. Reflexive Pronouns

Reflexive pronouns are words that end in -self or -selves such as myself, yourself and themselves. They are used to show that the subject of the sentence that performs an action is the same as the object that receives the action; that is, the subject acts on itself as expressed by the verb in the sentence. The subject of the sentence has to be a personal pronoun for a reflexive pronoun to refer back to the subject. The reflexive pronoun acts as the direct object. It can also be an indirect object. 

There are altogether eight reflexive pronouns and none of these are used as the subject of a sentence. Each personal pronoun has a corresponding reflexive pronoun which is formed by adding –self to the singular and –selves to the plural pronouns as shown in the following table.

Personal Pronouns Reflexive Pronouns Singular Plural Singular Plural First person I We myself ourselves Second person You You yourself yourselves Third person He They himself themselves She They herself themselves It They itself themselves

  

Examples:

• Sometimes I think to myself that it is time to lose some weight.
• Why do you 
   
  often talk to yourself but seldom to other people?
• He helped himself to the drinks and promised not to get drunk.
• She 
   
  likes to look at the mirror and smile to
   
   herself.
• We do not always make ourselves practise what we preach.
• One 
   
  of the dogs spent hours licking itself. 
   .
• They spent some time familiarizing themselves with the new workplace.

The subject and the object are the same person. The antecedent subject pronoun comes first and the reflexive pronoun refers to it. If we don’t use the reflexive pronoun, the meaning changes as shown by this example.

Examples:

• She baked herself a birthday cake.
  
• She baked her a birthday cake.
  (The second sentence says she baked a birthday cake for someone else.)

Besides those in the tables above, there is another reflexive pronoun: oneself.

Examples:

• One 
   
  has to improve
   
   oneself 
   
  all the time.
   .
• One 
   
  shouldn’t expect others to behave in the same way as 
   
  oneself
   
  .
   
  
  
• It is important that one thinks positively about oneself. 
  (Not:  
   one thinks positively about himself/herself.)
   .