# Reflexive pronoun



## Bilbo Baggins

Hello,

If I want to use a reflexive pronoun and say "He hit himself" is their a special pronoun for this or would I just conjugate the verb in the third person male singular and affix the third person male singular enclitic pronoun? 

Thanks.


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## Abu Talha

You can say ضَرَبَ نَفْسَهُ . 

Note that in some cases this type of meaning (which is stronger than a regular intransitive) is already "built in" in form V and sometimes VIII.

Examples: 
تطهّر 
 انتحر 

This is what I know so far. Maybe others will comment too.


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## Bilbo Baggins

I've just started tenses and moods and have not yet gotten to forms. However, I see the problem with my original question. There needs to be some sort of special third person reflexive pronoun (much like in Spanish) to clear up ambiguity. Simply writing "      ضربهُ " is confusing as the "hu" enclitic could be referring to any being in the third person and not necessarily to the subject.

However, in the other persons and numbers, no such ambiguity exists. So, would "I hit myself" simply be "   ضربتني"?


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## clevermizo

This is not idiomatic, just like "I hit me" and "You hit you" are not idiomatic in English. You would say ضربت نفسي. The construction نفسي، نفسك، نفسه، نفسها etc. means "myself, yourself, himself, herself." The plurals are أنفسنا، أنسفكم، أنفسهم.

However, like Daee notes, some verbs are automatically reflexive in meaning. But this is case by case. Often the verb of the forms تفعّل and تفاعل can have this meaning.


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## Abu Talha

clevermizo said:


> Often the verb of the forms تفعّل and تفاعل can have this meaning.


Hi clevermizo. Can you think of any examples where تفاعل has this meaning? The form VI verbs I know don't really carry (as far as I can see, but I may be wrong) the meaning of doing something to oneself in the manner one would do it to another. Thanks!


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## clevermizo

It was just a knee-jerk reaction that the forms with the تـ prefix have a reflexive meaning. But I guess it's true - I can't think of تفاعل with a truly "reflexive" meaning. However they have an "almost" reflexive meaning  - for example تشاركوا means they shared something _together_ or _amongst themselves_ or بين أنفسهم or مع بعضهم. So I don't know what you call this but it's similar to the idea of a reflexive.


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## Abu Talha

Ah. I see what you mean. Thanks.
By the way, I hope this is not off-topic here, but what exactly does "reflexive" mean in an Arabic context? Form VII is often defined summarily as the reflexive of form I, but it does not carry the meaning we've been discussing earlier.
For example انكسر means "it broke" or "it became/got broken", not "it broke itself" (as far as I know). Can the underlined definitions be called "reflexive"?


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## clevermizo

No, we can't call that reflexive. "It got broken" is a kind of mediopassive, I think. These are Western terms of course. But a few points:


1) We can never say that a certain "form" always corresponds to a certain type of semantic force. انفعل is not always a passive form, تفعّل is not always a reflexive form, فعّل is not always causative, استفعل doesn't always mean exactly "seeking the action of ...", etc. This is partly because these categories "reflexive", "causative" etc. don't exist in Arabic in the same way.

2) "Reflexive" means when the subject performs an action on him or herself. So تحمّم for example is a reflexive verb because it refers to you washing yourself - vs. حمّم where someone performs this action on someone else. However, we can't say تفعّل is reflexive on its own because for example تكلّم has this form but does not mean "talk to oneself." So the analysis is not simple.

Since "reflexive" is a Western term, I think if we use it to describe an Arabic verb in an Arabic context (and I think this is ok, by the way, in this case, because we're trying to describe what sort of action it is in a general way - not provide Arabic with grammatical categories it doesn't have), what we have to mean specifically is that a verb's subject is doing something to himself. I mean, we have to use the term literally. Because there is not a category of verbs which is in an Arabic context called "reflexive verbs" that encompasses more than one true semantic category. For example, verbs in Spanish or French conjugated with "se" encompass more than just the true reflexive category: él se baña (he has a bath: *reflexive*) vs. se habla español (Spanish is spoken: *mediopassive*).

3) The derived forms may follow some principles in terms of what they mean, but you have to understand that تفعل may have _evolved as a reflexive form_ (diachronic) but _is not necessarily a reflexive form_ in use (synchronic). In other words when we talk about such an such form being the passive of some other form, or the reflexive, causative, etc. we're really making hypotheses or generalizations about how these words evolved. I really don't think it's that useful to the learner to look at the categories as something to memorize in general. Most are not really productive. You can't always form a passive or a reflexive out of any verb. The forms are frozen. Better yet is to understand the following: while English may use special constructions to say things like "He broke the vase" or "The vase got broken" or "The vase broke" or "He made him break the vase" etc. etc. or "He broke his leg" etc. etc. - the Arabic learner has to be made aware that there _may in fact be different verbs used for all these senses_. And then the learner should learn those verbs.

I just think generalizations about the exact meaning of each form should be taken with a grain of salt. Maybe a learning aid, but by no means a categorical statement.

Just my thoughts.

The way that I learned (and continue to learn  ) Arabic, is instead of generalizing about different verbs as "causative" or "reflexive" etc. etc. I learn the forms فعل فاعل فعّل تفعّل تفاعل إلخ. as unique _conjugation paradigms_ (the same way that one would learn to conjugate verbs that end in -er, -ir, -re in French, for example). And that's it. When I learn a new verb, I learn what it means. I learn the verb انكسر and I learn it means "to become broken/to break (intransitive)". That's it. I don't try to rationalize what the form انفعل means, but I know that because it is of the form انفعل, that I conjugate it a certain way. I know it is conjugation like other verbs of the same type and has a similar مصدر، مضارع , etc. Maybe it's more laborious, but I try to not to overgeneralize.

Now if I was trying to write an essay on the evolution of Semitic verb forms, I might make it worth noting that most verbs that have the form انفعل in modern Arabic are of a passive nature. Furthermore, in dialects that have lost the true passive فــُعـــِــلَ, often the verb forms انفعل or افتعل or اتفعل stand in as a new passive. So then I can talk about generalization because I'm not trying to speak Arabic anymore - I'm trying to discuss how these words came to be and how the prefixes and structure affect the meaning, especially when comparing across Semitic languages. That's when these generalizations become useful.


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## Abu Talha

Thanks for the clarification.

I think you explained it quite well.


clevermizo said:


> The way that I learned (and continue to learn  ) Arabic, is instead of generalizing about different verbs as "causative" or "reflexive" etc. etc. I learn the forms فعل فاعل فعّل تفعّل تفاعل إلخ. as unique _conjugation paradigms_ (the same way that one would learn to conjugate verbs that end in -er, -ir, -re in French, for example). And that's it. When I learn a new verb, I learn what it means. I learn the verb انكسر and I learn it means "to become broken/to break (intransitive)". That's it. I don't try to rationalize what the form انفعل means, but I know that because it is of the form انفعل, that I conjugate it a certain way. I know it is conjugation like other verbs of the same type and has a similar مصدر، مضارع , etc. Maybe it's more laborious, but I try to not to overgeneralize.


I'd like to add, however, that, at least personally, some sense of a general meaning pattern for forms is useful after one has memorized them individually. For example, it could help you choose between زاد, تزيّد, تزايد, ازداد depending on what exact shade of meaning you wanted to convey. (of course, one could make the definitions more precise while learning the meaning in the first place too.) That is, it gives one, I think, a sort of retrospective understanding of (hindsight into?) the forms _within_ a certain root.


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## clevermizo

I agree with you, and would just like to add that I think this understanding begins to arise intuitively after you've amassed a decent vocabulary. You start to notice these trends and I think this is important.


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## rayloom

clevermizo said:


> But I guess it's true - I can't think of تفاعل with a truly "reflexive" meaning. However they have an "almost" reflexive meaning  - for example تشاركوا means they shared something _together_ or _amongst themselves_​ or بين أنفسهم or مع بعضهم. So I don't know what you call this but it's similar to the idea of a reflexive.


Maybe not in Engish, but I noticed that in languages which more commonly use reflexive pronouns (like French), the reflexivity (so to speak) of such Arabic forms becomes more apparent.
For example in French you have:
se demander, which in English is "to wonder", however in Arabic it would be تساؤل (form VI infinitive).
je me suis demandé, I wondered (I was wondering), تساءلت (more idiomatically كنت أتساءل).

Also to add, form 10 carries a reflexive meaning as well, also more apparent when comparing it with French.
استحمّ il s'est baigné (also works for اغتسل form 8 (reflexive) --> can also correspond to "se laver" (reflexive))


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## clevermizo

Yes of course! And in Spanish it's the same. In fact, you can use reflexive pronouns to imply "among each other" - like _nos hablamos_ (We (will) talk to each other), etc.


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## suma

clevermizo said:


> This is not idiomatic, just like "I hit me" and "You hit you" are not idiomatic in English...



I'm not certain about MSA but classical Arabic does allow this to some extent. See surah Yusuf verse 36
*إني أراني أعصر خمراً  

*literally "I see me pressing wine."


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## rayloom

Certainly. You have also: ظننتي، وجدتني، حسبتني، خلتني، علمتني...etc.
This applies to verbs called in Arabic أفعال القلوب. These verbs are bi-transitive and the 2 objects are equational (i.e the 2nd object "predicates" the first).
If the subject and the first object are the same, you get this form.
This isn't restricted to Classical Arabic (nor MSA), you have it also in dialectal Arabic (maybe not all dialects). But there has to be a 2nd object in the sentence.


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## lukebeadgcf

> Hello,
> 
> If I want to use a reflexive pronoun and say "He hit himself" is their a  special pronoun for this or would I just conjugate the verb in the  third person male singular and affix the third person male singular  enclitic pronoun?
> 
> Thanks.



ضرب نفسه is what I would suggest. However, the word اضطرب also comes to mind, and I believe it is particularly relevant to this discussion. Not to say that you could use اضطرب and that that would mean, "he hit himself," but that there is some similarity between the actual meaning of this word on the one hand and the one we would predict theoretically (i.e. "he hit himself") on the other. One of the meanings of this word is, "to get into a state of unrest, turmoil, tumult." Perhaps others might disagree with me, but I can see a semantic relationship between, "to hit oneself," and, "to get into a state of tumult." 



> Note that in some cases this type of meaning (which is stronger than a  regular intransitive) is already "built in" in form V and sometimes  VIII.



In fact, triliteral forms with a possible reflexive signification are V, VI, VII, VIII, X, and even II and IV, while perhaps not technically reflexive, can at least occasionally be _effective _(see below).



> However, like Daee notes, some verbs are automatically reflexive in  meaning. But this is case by case. Often the verb of the forms تفعّل and  تفاعل can have this meaning.





> Hi clevermizo. Can you think of any examples where تفاعل has this  meaning? The form VI verbs I know don't really carry (as far as I can  see, but I may be wrong) the meaning of doing something to oneself in  the manner one would do it to another. Thanks!



The reflexivity of VI often manifests in ways that are difficult for us to recognize or label as "reflexive." VI takes the transitive ideas of _effort_ and _attempt _present in III and makes them reflexive. This often takes the form in English as "pretending to..." like

تماوت to play dead 

تعامى to pretend to be blind

تباكى to pretend to cry

تجاهل to feign ignorance

Often however, the reflexivity is more obvious:

ترامى to throw oneself down at full length

تعالى to make oneself great, exalted, above all (as used in الله تعالى)



> It was just a knee-jerk reaction that the forms with the تـ prefix have a reflexive meaning.



I think you're right. Wright describe ت as carrying "reflexive force."



> However they have an "almost" reflexive meaning  - for example تشاركوا means they shared something _together_ or _amongst themselves_​ or بين أنفسهم or مع بعضهم. So I don't know what you call this but it's similar to the idea of a reflexive.



I think you are referring to _reciprocity_, which is a very common characteristic of VI.



> Ah. I see what you mean. Thanks.
> By the way, I hope this is not off-topic here, but what exactly does "reflexive" mean in an Arabic context?  Form VII is often defined summarily as the reflexive of form I, but it  does not carry the meaning we've been discussing earlier.
> For example انكسر means "it broke" or "it became/got broken", not "it broke itself" (as far as I know). Can the underlined definitions be called "reflexive"?



This is a very good question. Before I talk about انكسر, let me address the term "reflexive." "Reflexive" is a word thrown around quite a bit by when talking about verbal forms, but I think very it deserves a reexamination. When Wright addresses this term, he explains that in the case of a _reflexive_ verb, there must a _reflex __object_ and this _reflex object _can either be the direct object or the accusative of the original, non-reflexive (and transitive) verb, or it can be the indirect object, or dative (the indirect object or dative indicates "for whom, for whose benefit" the action the verb takes place. Let's try to see how this works in practice.

Let us use VIII, because this form can be either of types of reflexive (the _reflex object _can be either the accusative or the dative). VIII is _reflexive _of I. Here are a few examples of when the _reflex object _is the accusative:

فرق to separate (transitive)
افترق to separate oneself

عرض to put something in someone's way
اعترض to put oneself in the way, to oppose

and again:

ضرب to beat
اضطرب to move oneself to and fro, to be agitated

When the _reflex object _is the indirect object, or the dative, the form VIII verb is likewise (compared with I) transitive, but it is reflexive in the sense that the action expressed by the verb is being performed *for the sake of *the subject of the verb, or لَهُ. In this particular form, I and VIII become only subtly different, and in modern usage, often become synonymous. The best example I know of to illustrate this fading distinction is:

كسب to gain win acquire
اكتسب to take on (for oneself) a new quality, aspect (also can mean the same as I)

So when we say "reflexive," we are talking about two different types of verbs: verbs in which the subject and object are the same, and verbs in which the subject and indirect object are the same. Forms V, VI, and VII are usually the former (VII exclusively), while VIII and X can be either.

Now to answer your question. Wright explains that out the reflexive signification of forms V and VII



> arises a second [signification], which is even more common, namely the _effective_. It differs from the passive in this--that the _passive _indicates that a person is the object of, or experiences the the effect of, the action of _another; _whereas the _effective _implies that an act is done to a person, or a state produced in him, whether it be caused by _another _or _himself._



He addresses the word انكسر specifically and defines it as simply, "to break." Even if this was originally reflexive, the reflex object is no longer specified or assumed to be known.



> No, we can't call that reflexive. "It got broken" is a kind of  mediopassive, I think. These are Western terms of course. But a few  points:



I wonder if we could consider "effective" and "mediopassive" synonymous.



> 2) "Reflexive" means when the subject performs an action on him or  herself. So تحمّم for example is a reflexive verb because it refers to  you washing yourself - vs. حمّم where someone performs this action on  someone else. However, we can't say تفعّل is reflexive on its own  because for example تكلّم has this form but does not mean "talk to  oneself." So the analysis is not simple.



I think we could probably call تكلّم reflexive if we said that it meant, "to bring oneself into a state of talking."



> 3) The derived forms may follow some principles in terms of what they mean, but you have to understand that تفعل may have _evolved as a reflexive form_ (diachronic) but _is not necessarily a reflexive form_  in use (synchronic). In other words when we talk about such an such  form being the passive of some other form, or the reflexive, causative,  etc. we're really making hypotheses or generalizations about how these  words evolved. I really don't think it's that useful to the learner to  look at the categories as something to memorize in general. Most are not  really productive. You can't always form a passive or a reflexive out  of any verb. The forms are frozen. Better yet is to understand the  following: while English may use special constructions to say things  like "He broke the vase" or "The vase got broken" or "The vase broke" or  "He made him break the vase" etc. etc. or "He broke his leg" etc. etc. -  the Arabic learner has to be made aware that there _may in fact be different verbs used for all these senses_. And then the learner should learn those verbs.
> 
> I just think generalizations about the exact meaning of each form should  be taken with a grain of salt. Maybe a learning aid, but by no means a  categorical statement.



I agree with you. I think one of the major mistakes Arabic-language learners make is to associate a verbal form with one signification. This only really works with VII, and is usually useful with II and IV. However, this simplistic understanding ceases to function with the rest of the derived forms. Exploring all the different significations for all the different forms is not going to be useful until you've amassed a large vocabulary and have an intuition to corroborate your theoretical observations. I also agree with Daee though that it is useful to have a sense for the "shades of meaning."

I feel like I should mention in general however, that even with a very large vocabulary, and mastery of these theoretical forms and their significations, trying to place each verb in one category or the other is often more frustrating than rewarding.



> Certainly. You have also: ظننتي، وجدتني، حسبتني، خلتني، علمتني...etc.
> This applies to verbs called in Arabic أفعال القلوب. These verbs are  bi-transitive and the 2 objects are equational (i.e the 2nd object  "predicates" the first).
> If the subject and the first object are the same, you get this form.
> This isn't restricted to Classical Arabic (nor MSA), you have it also in  dialectal Arabic (maybe not all dialects). But there has to be a 2nd  object in the sentence.



I was not aware of this tidbit, thank you.


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## Abu Talha

Very interesting. Thank you suma, rayloom and lukebeadgcf for adding additional clarifications and dimensions. I now know much which I didn't earlier.

In the end, after this discussion, I've come to understand that "reflexive" when used in an Arabic-only context ought to be considered distinct from what it means in English (or any other language). It is a term to describe a grammatical function within Arabic, and despite their similarities, one should be careful when trying to draw comparisons between a reflexive in English and a reflexive in Arabic. This is similar to how the term accusative is taken from Latin but it takes on its own meaning within an Arabic grammar.

So when someone asks a question based on the English meaning (like the OP did), we would not use the Arabic-only meaning of "reflexive". 


> ضرب نفسه is what I would suggest. However, the word اضطرب also comes to mind, and I believe it is particularly relevant to this discussion. Not to say that you could use اضطرب and that that would mean, "he hit himself," but that there is some similarity between the actual meaning of this word on the one hand and the one we would predict theoretically (i.e. "he hit himself") on the other. One of the meanings of this word is, "to get into a state of unrest, turmoil, tumult." Perhaps others might disagree with me, but I can see a semantic relationship between, "to hit oneself," and, "to get into a state of tumult."


So ضرب نفسه is the only correct answer to the OP's question, even though اضطرب could be suggested to the OP in case it is closer to his intended meaning (but he could not express it in English, simply because you don't have a way of saying it in English)
In this case, however, in my humble opinion, I think اضطرب is quite distinct from ضرب even though they are, of course, related. Not like say فرق and افترق.

For example, in this thread: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2226134
the two answers given to the OP were تتخفّى الطبيعة عنّنا and تخفي الطبيعة نفسها عن الأنظار.

Is this a valid conclusion?



> I feel like I should mention in general however, that even with a very large vocabulary, and mastery of these theoretical forms and their significations, trying to place each verb in one category or the other is often more frustrating than rewarding.


Quite frustrating, yes! But unfortunately unavoidable when you're trying to go from English to Arabic and I wish the dictionaries had devoted some usage notes to this aspect.


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## rayloom

lukebeadgcf said:


> I was not aware of this tidbit, thank you.


 
You're welcome 



daee said:


> For example, in this thread: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2226134
> the two answers given to the OP were تتخفّى الطبيعة عنّنا and تخفي الطبيعة نفسها عن الأنظار.
> 
> Is this a valid conclusion?



I think that both answers (تتخفى الطبيعة عنا & تخفي الطبيعة نفسها عنا) given for that thread work. 
However, as you've noted, that's not always the case otherwise.


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## Ali Smith

But sometimes نفس + pronoun can represent something other than a reflexive pronoun, can't it? For example,

قَالَا رَبَّنَا ظَلَمْنَا أَنفُسَنَا وَإِن لَّمْ تَغْفِرْ لَنَا وَتَرْحَمْنَا لَنَكُونَنَّ مِنَ الْخَاسِرِينَ (23 الأعراف)

Here it means "our souls" rather than "ourselves".


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## 𒍝𒊑𒈾 𒂵𒉿𒀉

Ali Smith said:


> But sometimes نفس + pronoun can represent something other than a reflexive pronoun, can't it? For example,
> 
> قَالَا رَبَّنَا ظَلَمْنَا أَنفُسَنَا وَإِن لَّمْ تَغْفِرْ لَنَا وَتَرْحَمْنَا لَنَكُونَنَّ مِنَ الْخَاسِرِينَ (23 الأعراف)
> 
> Here it means "our souls" rather than "ourselves".


No. It means reflexive.


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## Ali Smith

Let's see what the native speakers have to say about أنفسنا in قَالَا رَبَّنَا ظَلَمْنَا أَنفُسَنَا وَإِن لَّمْ تَغْفِرْ لَنَا وَتَرْحَمْنَا لَنَكُونَنَّ مِنَ الْخَاسِرِينَ.

In the meantime, here's an unmistakable instance of نفس + pronoun being used in a non-reflexive manner:

وَجَحَدُوا بِهَا وَاسْتَيْقَنَتْهَا أَنفُسُهُمْ ظُلْمًا وَعُلُوًّا ۚ فَانظُرْ كَيْفَ كَانَ عَاقِبَةُ الْمُفْسِدِينَ (14) وَلَقَدْ آتَيْنَا دَاوُودَ وَسُلَيْمَانَ عِلْمًا ۖ وَقَالَا الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ الَّذِي فَضَّلَنَا عَلَىٰ كَثِيرٍ مِّنْ عِبَادِهِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ (15) وَوَرِثَ سُلَيْمَانُ دَاوُودَ ۖ وَقَالَ يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ عُلِّمْنَا مَنطِقَ الطَّيْرِ وَأُوتِينَا مِن كُلِّ شَيْءٍ ۖ إِنَّ هَٰذَا لَهُوَ الْفَضْلُ الْمُبِينُ (16) وَحُشِرَ لِسُلَيْمَانَ جُنُودُهُ مِنَ الْجِنِّ وَالْإِنسِ وَالطَّيْرِ فَهُمْ يُوزَعُونَ (17)
(النمل)


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## Mahaodeh

Ali Smith said:


> Let's see what the native speakers have to say about أنفسنا in قَالَا رَبَّنَا ظَلَمْنَا أَنفُسَنَا وَإِن لَّمْ تَغْفِرْ لَنَا وَتَرْحَمْنَا لَنَكُونَنَّ مِنَ الْخَاسِرِينَ.


I would say that it means “ourselves” here, not “our souls”.


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## 𒍝𒊑𒈾 𒂵𒉿𒀉

Why can't it mean our souls?

Can it ever mean soul?


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## Hemza

suma said:


> I'm not certain about MSA but classical Arabic does allow this to some extent. See surah Yusuf verse 36
> *إني أراني أعصر خمراً  *
> 
> literally "I see me pressing wine."


Very similar to what is heard in some dialects, namely Mauritanian, Moroccan, Tunisian and Libyan where أرى/رى/ترى is used to emphasise on something. In Algerian, it is used for the progressive tense. In Arabia and Syria I think many dialects use it yet I don't know if it is in a similar manner as in the Maghreb (excluding Algerian).
This old feature existence in the قرآن may explain its use by some dialects.


𒍝𒊑𒈾 𒂵𒉿𒀉 said:


> Why can't it mean our souls?


The content allows to figure out the meaning and here it is not souls.


𒍝𒊑𒈾 𒂵𒉿𒀉 said:


> Can it ever mean soul?


"Soul" to my knowledge is روح while نفس may mean "spirit" or "oneself" (as above for the latter meaning).


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