ON THE TRUE REFLECTIVE PRONOUN IN THE GOTHIC LANGUAGES, AND ON ITS ABSENCE
IN ENGLISH.
s. 299. A true reflective pronoun is wanting in English. In other words,
there are no equivalents to the Latin pronominal forms _sui_, _sibi_, _se_.
Nor yet are there any equivalents in English to the so-called adjectival
forms _suus_, _sua_, _suum_: since _his_ and _her_ are the equivalents to
_ejus_ and _illius_, and are not adjectives but genitive cases.
At the first view, this last sentence seems unnecessary. It might seem
superfluous to state, that, if there were no such primitive form as _se_
(or its equivalent), there could be no such secondary form as _suus_ (or
its equivalent).
Such, however, is not the case. _Suus_ might exist in the language, and yet
_se_ be absent; in other words, the derivative form might have continued
whilst the original one had become extinct.
Such is really the case with the _Old_ Frisian. The reflective personal
form, the equivalent to _se_, is lost, whilst the reflective possessive
form, the equivalent to _suus_, is found. In the _Modern_ Frisian, however,
both forms are lost; as they also are in the present English.
The history of the reflective pronoun in the Gothic tongues is as
follows:--
_In Moeso-Gothic._--Found in three cases, _seina_, _sis_, _sik_=_sui_,
_sibi_, _se_.
_In Old Norse._--Ditto. _Sin_, _ser_, _sik_=_sui_, _sibi_, _se_.
_In Old High German._--The dative form lost; there being no such word as
_sir_=_sis_=_sibi_. Besides this, the genitive {248} or possessive form
_sin_ is used only in the masculine and neuter genders.
_In Old Frisian._--As stated above, there is here no equivalent to _se_;
whilst there _is_ the form _sin_=_suus_.
_In Old Saxon._--The equivalent to _se_, _sibi_, and _sui_ very rare. The
equivalent to _suus_ not common, but commoner than in Anglo-Saxon.
_In Anglo-Saxon._--No instance of the equivalent to _se_ at all. The forms
_sinne_=_suum_, and _sinum_=_suo_, occur in Beowulf. In Caedmon cases of
_sin_=_suus_ are more frequent. Still the usual form is _his_=_ejus_.
In the Dutch, Danish, and Swedish, the true reflectives, both personal and
possessive, occur; so that the modern Frisian and English stand alone in
respect to the entire absence of them.--Deutsche Grammatik, iv. 321-348.
The statement concerning the absence of the true reflective in English,
although negative, has an important philological bearing on more points
than one.
1. It renders the use of the word _self_ much more necessary than it would
be otherwise.
2. It renders us unable to draw a distinction between the meanings of the
Latin words _suus_ and _ejus_.
3. It precludes the possibility of the evolution of a middle voice like
that of the Old Norse, where _kalla-sc_=_kalla-sik_.
* * * * *
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