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.