Reflexive pronouns
A reflexive pronoun🇮🇸 afturbeygt fornafn is used in Icelandic when the object of the verb is the same as its subject, i.e. when one does something to oneself:
Ég meiddi mig í slysinu.
Þú greiðir þér áður en þú ferð út.
Anna þvær sér með sápu.
Krakkarnir skemmta sér í lauginni.
Þið eigið að skammast ykkar!
The reflexive pronoun always refers back to the agent (the subject of the sentence).
Formation
First and second person
For first- and second-person pronouns, the reflexive form is the same as the regular form of the pronoun. It’s used in whatever case is required by the verb.
sig
In the third person, we have a special pronoun, sig, which refers back to the subject. The logic of this is similar to the possessive pronoun sinn – the same pronoun is used for all genders and numbers in the third person. Its declension similar to ég or þú and is as follows:
| Nominative | — |
|---|---|
| Accusative | sig |
| Dative | sér |
| Genitive | sín |
Note that sig doesn’t have a nominative form because like sinn, it can never occur in the subject of the sentence.
Usage
Many verbs have a particular meaning when they are used reflexively. When used as such, the possessive pronoun cannot be dropped:
Ég þvæ mér.
Hann skammast sín fyrir hegðun sína.
Við þurfum að flýta okkur.
Unlike in English, *ég þvæ is an ungrammatical sentence. The verb þvo is transitive🇮🇸 áhrifssögn – meaning it always requires an object, so we must use a reflexive pronoun in this case and say ég þvæ mér. 🛁
Many reflexive verbs can also be used in a non-reflexive way. For example:
Ég þvæ barninu mínu.
Þú meiddir mig!
Others cannot be used in this way, at least not about other people. For example, flýta sér means “to hurry”. However, you can’t say *ég flýti þér. You can use it non-reflexively about abstract things though, such as a project: fyrirtækið flýtti verkefninu. These restrictions are particular to each verb and need to be learnt by heart.
Long-distance reflexivity
Many languages have reflexive verbs in some form, but there are normally limits on how far away the verb can be from the subject before the reflexive “link” is broken. In Icelandic, this link persists into subordinate clauses. The words in blue below refer to the same person (try hovering over them):
Sindri bað mig um að tala við sig.
Þeir spurðu mig hvort ég kannaðist við sig.
Lilja sagði mér að sér fyndist kjóllinn ljótur.