An intensive pronoun (or self-intensifier) adds emphasis to a statement; for example, "I did it ''myself''." While English intensive pronouns (e.g., ''myself'', ''yourself'', ''himself, herself'', ''ourselves'', ''yourselves'', ''themselves'') use the same form as

reflexive pronoun 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 n ...

s, an intensive pronoun is different from a reflexive pronoun because it functions as an

adverbial In English grammar, an adverbial ( abbreviated ) is a word (an adverb) or a group of words (an adverbial clause or adverbial phrase) that modifies or more closely defines the sentence or the verb. (The word ''adverbial'' itself is also used as a ...

or adnominal modifier, not as an

argument An argument is a series of sentences, statements, or propositions some of which are called premises and one is the conclusion. The purpose of an argument is to give reasons for one's conclusion via justification, explanation, and/or persu ...

of a verb. Both intensive and reflexive pronouns make reference to an antecedent. For example, compare "I will do it myself," where "myself" is a self-intensifier indicating that nobody else did it, to "I sold myself," where "myself" fills the argument role of

direct object In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but ...

. This sentence may be extended, as in "I sold myself myself," where the second pronoun emphasizes the fact that nobody helped me to sell myself.

Terminology

Self-intensifiers have also been called simply "intensifiers",König, Ekkehard, Peter Siemund & Stephan Töpper. 2005. Intensifiers and reflexives. In Martin Haspelmath, Matthew S. Dryer, David Gil & Bernard Comrie (eds.), The world atlas of language structures, 194–197. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://wals.info/chapter/112. or "emphatic reflexives", or "intensive reflexives". In many languages, they are similar or identical to reflexive pronouns.

In other languages

Latin has a dedicated intensifier, '' ipse'', ''-a'', ''-um'', used to emphasize a noun or pronoun in either a subject or a predicate of a sentence. In Danish, emphasis is indicated using the word ''selv''; "I will do it myself" is rendered ''Jeg gør det selv''. When a verb is used that requires reflexion, it becomes similar to English except that two words are used: "I help myself" is rendered ''Jeg hjælper mig selv''. In German, emphasis is indicated using the word ''selbst''. "I will do it myself" is rendered ''Ich werde es selbst tun''. Dutch usage of ''zelf'' is identical: ''Ik zal het zelf doen''. In Spanish, as in most other

pro-drop language A pro-drop language (from "pronoun-dropping") is a language in which certain classes of pronouns may be omitted when they can be pragmatically or grammatically inferable. The precise conditions vary from language to language, and can be quite ...

s, emphasis can be added simply by explicitly using the omissible pronoun. Following the above example, "I will do it myself" is rendered "Lo haré yo." Adding "mismo" after the pronoun yields additional emphasis. French uses a form of the

disjunctive pronoun A disjunctive pronoun is a stressed form of a personal pronoun reserved for use in isolation or in certain syntactic contexts. Examples and usage Disjunctive pronominal forms are typically found in the following contexts. The examples are taken fr ...

that is followed by the adverb (e.g. ). There are intensive forms of personal pronouns in

Udmurt language Udmurt (; Cyrillic: Удмурт) is a Permic languages, Permic language spoken by the Udmurt people who are native to Udmurtia. As a Uralic languages, Uralic language, it is distantly related to languages such as Finnish language, Finnish, Estonia ...

Komi language Komi (, ), also known as Zyran, Zyrian or Komi-Zyryan (),. is the native language of the Komi (Zyrians). It is one of the Permian languages; the other regional varieties are Komi-Permyak, which has official status, and Komi-Yazva. Komi is s ...

, and

Tatar language Tatar ( ; or ) is a Turkic languages, Turkic language spoken by the Volga Tatars mainly located in modern Tatarstan (European Russia), as well as Siberia. It should not be confused with Crimean Tatar language, Crimean Tatar or Siberian Tatar ...

, e.g., " ouourselves": Udmurt: 'асьтэос', Komi: 'асьныд', Tatar: 'үзегез'. In

Russian language Russian is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic languages, Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is ...

the intensifiers are 'sam' (masculine myself, masculine yourself, himself) / sama (feminine myself, feminine yourself, herself) / sami (*selves) and unlike English they differ from the reflexive modifier 'sebya', applicable to all pronouns. Intensifier pronouns may be used to intensify the 'base' pronoun: "ona sama vidit" ("She-herself-sees), as well as by themselves: "sama vidit" (herself-sees), because in Russian the base pronoun may be omitted, because it may be inferred from the declension of the verb. The same is with the

Belarusian language Belarusian (, ) is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language. It is one of the two Languages of Belarus, official languages in Belarus, the other being Russian language, Russian. It is also spoken in parts of Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Polan ...

Terminology

In other languages

See also

References

Further reading