Reflexive Pronouns

Latin Learning Latin
1

the reflexive pronoun Sui has the possessive adjective Suus. Sui and Suus are always reflexive. are the following reflexive too? Meus, Tuus, Noster,
Vester

thanks

2

Those are all possessive pronouns. The reflexive pronouns are as follows:

ego me
tu te
is se
nos nos
uos uos
ii se

This textbook i’m using is from the Cuban Missle Crisis.

Quidnam?

3

This book says:

Reflexive Pronouns: me, te, se, nos, vos, se

The book also says personal pronoun ego and tu and the third person reflexive pronoun sui have corresponding adjectives called possessive adjectives. Then it gives the list: meus, tuus, noster, vester, suus

You said that meus, tuus, noster, vester are all possessive pronouns. In this book it says they are the possessive adjectives for the personal pronouns.

The words ‘possessive pronoun’ and ‘personal pronouns forming possessive adjectives’ sounds like they are saying the same thing. Is this correct?

So what is sui? I have it listed as either a possessive adjective or a third person reflexive genitive. It looks like these are two different words altogether.

If this is so, then why is the book calling attention to suus (suus -a -um) as reflexive. What is so reflexive about suus (his, her, their, theirs) compared to meus (my, my own, mine)?

Thanks.

4

First you need to know the difference between a personal pronoun and a possessive adjective.

A personal pronoun (me/te/se/nos/vos and the same in the other cases) stands in for a noun; it replaces the name of a specific person or thing.

A possessive adjective (meus/tuus/suus/noster/voster) tells to whom something belongs.

Now, in each of those categories, Latin has a reflexive third person pronoun/possessive. The reflexive 3rd person PRONOUN is sui/sibi/se. It is reflexive because it reflects the subject of the sentence; that is, it represents the same person/thing as the subject of the sentence.

We have this same concept in English. The English reflexive pronoun is “himself/herself/itself.” Just like in Latin, it is only used to reflect the subject of the sentence. So, in the sentence:

Cicero loves himself.

We know that the reflexive pronoun is the same person as the subject of the sentence (Cicero). In Latin, we would write that sentence:

Cicero se amat.

The possessives work the same way: they show that the subject of the sentence owns something in the sentence. We do not have a special separate form for this in English; in the sentence:

Cicero loves his mother.

We don’t know if Cicero loves HIS OWN mother or SOMEONE ELSE’S mother. It could mean either. But in the Latin sentence:

Cicero suam matrem amat.

We know for sure that the mother being loved is Cicero’s. The reflexive pronoun “suus, -a, -um” MUST refer to the subject of the sentence.

Now, notice that these examples both have a third person subject. If the subject were first or second person, Latin would use no special forms to show reflexivity - BUT ENGLISH WOULD. So in the English sentence:

I love myself.

The object of the sentence is ‘myself’, not ‘me’, because it reflects the subject of the sentence. But in Latin, there are no separate forms for ‘myself’ and ‘me’. The forms ‘mei, mihi, me’ can be either reflexive or non-reflexive. The same is true for all 1st and 2nd person Latin pronouns.

EDIT: To answer your other questions:

  1. The form “sui” can be either the genitive singular of the possessive adjective or the genitive of the reflexive pronoun.

  2. The phrases ‘possessive pronouns’ and ‘possessive adjectives for the personal pronouns’ mean the same thing. Often there can be many slightly different ways of describing the same grammatical phenomenon.

5

I would respectfully disagree… in the sentence, “Cicero loves his mother.” It is strongly implied, if not explicit, that he loves his “own” mother. The author of the sentence would write "Cicero loves “someone elses” mother if the author wanted to convey to the reader that it wasn’t his mother he was referring to in this case, would he not?

Regards,

Mark

6

Context ought to be enough. Could be either.
Alone, however, I agree with mfranks.