CHAPTER VI.
ON THE TRUE REFLECTIVE PRONOUN IN THE GOTHIC LANGUAGES, AND ON ITS ABSENCE IN ENGLISH.
[§ 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 Mœso-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
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 Cædmon 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.