Reflexive and intensive pronouns in -self

Gist. Pronouns in -self (singular) and -selves (plural) are formed from the possessive form in the 1st and 2nd person (my-self, your-self, our-selves) and from the objective in the 3rd (him-self, them-selves; her-self, it-self — the forms coincide). They have two roles: reflexive — an object that repeats the subject (She hurt herself), and intensive — emphasis on the person (She herself said so).

Conditions and exceptions.

• Generic oneself — from one.
• Dialectal and nonstandard hisself, theirselves are built from the possessive form in the 3rd person; themself is used for singular they.
• Singular or plural is visible from the word ending: -self ↔ singular, -selves ↔ plural. Yourself is singular, yourselves plural, although you does not distinguish number.

Examples. I cut myself. They enjoyed themselves. The president himself called.

In UD. UPOS PRON; XPOS PRP; lemma — the form itself (themselves → themselves); FEATS Case=Acc|Reflex=Yes with person, number and gender; PronType=Prs in reflexive use, PronType=Emp in intensive use. The guidelines (Case.md, Reflex.md) say intensives have no Case and Reflex, but EWT 2.18 assigns Case=Acc|Reflex=Yes to both, so the rule below follows the data and has level warn.

Sources. UD docs/_en/feat/Reflex.md, feat/PronType.md (Emp: Thomas himself said so), feat/Case.md, docs/_en/pos/PRON.md (Reflexive column); Santorini 1990, §2, p. 4 (PRP also covers -self/-selves); Sweet NEG I §1109–1114 (text-1, p. 377–378: him-, them-, it- — objective stems, my-, your-, our- — possessive; nonstandard hisself, theirselves; stressed intensive and unstressed reflexive), §1105 (p. 376: he looked about him); Whitney §164 (text-1, p. 89: myself am Naples; I dress myself); Kruisinga II.2 §§1024–1030 (text-3, p. 180–183: intensive use is not reflexive).

rule: en.morph.reflexive-feats
what: a pronoun in -self/-selves — PRP, Reflex=Yes, Case=Acc, PronType Prs or Emp
match: p[upos=PRON, suffix=self|selves, !feats.Typo]
require: p[xpos=PRP, feats.Reflex=Yes, feats.Case=Acc, feats.PronType=Prs|Emp]
severity: warn
source: UD en feat/Reflex, feat/PronType (Emp), pos/PRON; EWT 2.18 practice

rule: en.morph.reflexive-number
what: -selves — plural
match: p[upos=PRON, suffix=selves, !feats.Typo]
require: p[feats.Number=Plur]
severity: error
source: UD en pos/PRON (yourselves, ourselves, themselves — Plur)

rule: en.morph.reflexive-number-sing
what: -self — singular
match: p[upos=PRON, suffix=self, !feats.Typo]
require: p[feats.Number=Sing]
severity: error
source: UD en pos/PRON (myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, oneself — Sing)

rule: en.morph.reflexive-lemma
what: the lemma of a reflexive pronoun is the form itself
match: p[upos=PRON, form=myself|yourself|himself|herself|itself|ourselves|yourselves|themselves|oneself, !feats.Typo]
require: p[lemma=myself|yourself|himself|herself|itself|ourselves|yourselves|themselves|oneself]
severity: error
source: UD en pos/PRON (reflexives are not lemmatized to the base pronoun)

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/en/seeds/morph/pron-reflexive/