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Intensive Pronouns: Untriggered Reflexive. "Myself" Tends To Sound Weightier, More Formal, Than Little Ol' Me or I, So It

This document discusses different types of pronouns: - Intensive pronouns like myself emphasize a noun. Reflexive pronouns like herself indicate that the subject receives the action of the verb. - Be careful not to use reflexive forms like myself when they are unnecessary. - Interrogative pronouns like what and which introduce questions. Reciprocal pronouns like each other and one another refer to an exchange between two or more people or things.

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91 views2 pages

Intensive Pronouns: Untriggered Reflexive. "Myself" Tends To Sound Weightier, More Formal, Than Little Ol' Me or I, So It

This document discusses different types of pronouns: - Intensive pronouns like myself emphasize a noun. Reflexive pronouns like herself indicate that the subject receives the action of the verb. - Be careful not to use reflexive forms like myself when they are unnecessary. - Interrogative pronouns like what and which introduce questions. Reciprocal pronouns like each other and one another refer to an exchange between two or more people or things.

Uploaded by

Yoyon DwiCahyono
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Intensive Pronouns

The intensive pronouns (such as myself, yourself, herself, ourselves, themselves) consist of a
personal pronoun plus self or selves and emphasize a noun. (I myself don't know the answer.) It is
possible (but rather unusual) for an intensive pronoun to precede the noun it refers to. (Myself, I
don't believe a word he says.)

Reflexive Pronouns
The reflexive pronouns (which have the same forms as the intensive pronouns) indicate that the
sentence subject also receives the action of the verb. (Students who cheat on this quiz are only
hurting themselves. You paid yourself a million dollars? She encouraged herself to do well.)
What this means is that whenever there is a reflexive pronoun in a sentence there must be a
person to whom that pronoun can "reflect." In other words, the sentence "Please hand that book
to myself" would be incorrect because there is no "I" in that sentence for the "myself" to reflect
to (and we would use "me" instead of "myself"). A sentence such as "I gave that book to myself
for Christmas" might be silly, but it would be correct.
Be alert to a tendency to use reflexive pronoun forms (ending in -self) where they are neither
appropriate nor necessary. The inappropriate reflexive form has a wonderful name: the
untriggered reflexive. "Myself" tends to sound weightier, more formal, than little ol' me or I, so it
has a way of sneaking into sentences where it doesn't belong.

Bob and myself I are responsible for this decision.

These decisions will be made by myself me.

If you have any questions, please contact myself me or Bob Jones.

When pronouns are combined, the reflexive will take either the first person

Juanita, Carlos, and I have deceived ourselves into believing in my uncle.

or, when there is no first person, the second person:

You and Carlos have deceived yourselves.

The indefinite pronoun (see above) one has its own reflexive form ("One must have faith in
oneself."), but the other indefinite pronouns use either himself or themselves as reflexives. (There
is an entire page on the pronoun one.) It is probably better to pluralize and avoid the clumsy
himself or herself construction.

No one here can blame himself or herself.

The people here cannot blame themselves.

Interrogative Pronouns
The interrogative pronouns (who/which/what) introduce questions. (What is that? Who will help
me? Which do you prefer?) Which is generally used with more specific reference than what. If
we're taking a quiz and I ask "Which questions give you the most trouble?", I am referring to
specific questions on that quiz. If I ask "What questions give you most trouble"? I could be
asking what kind of questions on that quiz (or what kind of question, generically, in general)
gives you trouble. The interrogative pronouns also act as Determiners: It doesn't matter which
beer you buy. He doesn't know whose car he hit. In this determiner role, they are sometimes
called interrogative adjectives.
Like the relative pronouns, the interrogative pronouns introduce noun clauses, and like the
relative pronouns, the interrogative pronouns play a subject role in the clauses they introduce:

We know who is guilty of this crime.

I already told the detective what I know about it.

Reciprocal Pronouns
The reciprocal pronouns are each other and one another. They are convenient forms for
combining ideas. If Bob gave Alicia a book for Christmas and Alicia gave Bob a book for
Christmas, we can say that they gave each other books (or that they gave books to each other).

My mother and I give each other a hard time.

If more than two people are involved (let's say a whole book club), we would say that they gave
one another books. This rule (if it is one) should be applied circumspectly. It's quite possible for
the exchange of books within this book club, for example, to be between individuals, making
"each other" just as appropriate as "one another."
Reciprocal pronouns can also take possessive forms:

They borrowed each other's ideas.

The scientists in this lab often use one another's equipment.

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