blutoonwithcarrotandnail wrote:Do you mean like
'He did this himself' (he performed the action)
vs
'He hit himself' (he performed the action on himself)
That actually makes sense. However, this does not map onto the
book example
'The farmer himself plowed the field'
and
'The farmer plowed the field for himself'
If it did map perfectly onto it it would have said:
'The farmer himself plowed the field'
and
'The farmer plowed himself'
Again
'The farmer plowed himself' does not map onto 'The farmer plowed the field for himself'
Thanks.
Here is the best way that I can describe this.
IPSE
Is an Intensive Pronoun, it is used to give emphasis to a noun or
pronoun in
either the subject or the predicate of a sentence.
Aside from being translated as myself/ourselves, yourself/yourselves,
and himself/herself/itself/themselves, it can also mean the very or
the actual. The best way to think of the use of Ipse is to see it in light
of the importance of the noun it is pertaining to.
i.e. Cicero himself told it to me. (Cicero Ipse id mihi dixit.)
Cicero told it to me, myself. (Cicero id mihi ipsi dixit.)
We ourselves will sail across the sea.([Nos] Ipsi trans mare navigabimus.)
We will sail across the see itself. (trans mare ipsum navigabimus.)
They themselves will fight to the death. ([Ea] Ipsa ad morti pugnabunt.)
They will fight to death itself. (Ad morti ipsi pugnabunt.)
You (sg.) yourself hold wisdom. ([Tu] ipse sapientiam tenes.)
You (sg) hold wisdom itself. (Sapientiam ipsam tenes.)
You (pl) yourselves conquered Rome. ([Vos] ipsi Romam vicisti.)
You (pl) conquered Rome itself. (Romam ipsam vicisti.)
As you see from the examples any noun that was modified by IPSE held
a certain emphasis as to it's importance in the sentence. I hope
that helps.
Now as for the reflexive pronoun sibi and it's uses.
As someone else has already stated a reflexive pronoun reflects back
on to only the subject of a sentence. For this reason there is
no Nominative for this pronoun. To give a more full illustration I will
have to incorporate the reflexive pronouns of myself and yourself as
well. I apologize in advance for all of the examples.
I denied myself ([Ego] negavi me.)
I give peace to myself. ([Ego] pacem do mihi.)
We sing for ourselves. ([Nos] cantamus nobis.)
We love ourselves. ([Nos] amamus nos.)
You (sg.) frighten yourself. ([Tu] terres te.)
You (pl.) give strength to yourself. ([Vos] Vires datis vobis.)
He doesn't understand himself. (Is non intellegit se.)
These next two examples show an important difference between
the use of (de) as in regarding something and the use of the genitive
as possessing something.
Marcus speaks of himself. (Marcus dicit de se.)
She gives of herself. (Ea dat sui.)
It remains to itself. (Id remanet sibi.)
They come for themselves. (Ea veniunt sibi.)
They dine with/by themselves. (Ea canant se.)
I hope these examples and explanations could help. The only other
advise I could give in understanding the differences is to look at this
way; when using a reflexive pronoun (mihi, tibi, sibi, etc.) it acts as
it's own noun, so in English as we say, He gives to himself, the
subject, He, is performing the verb, gives, to the predicate noun,
himself. Just as if I were to say, He gives to the people, "He gives," is
the subject and his action, and "to the people," is the subject
noun receiving the action. So, the reflexive pronoun is it's own noun.
When using the Intensive pronoun it is to show the emphasis of a
noun, and would be right even to group it as an adjective, for even
though it doesn't modify the noun with a complementary word such
as: great, weak, happy, sad, etc., by showing the "emphasis" as
HE/THAT is THE person/thing which is performing the verb, it modifies
the significance of the noun.
If this is all to confusing let me know and I will try to make it more simple.
