# My uncle sat him down in the chair ['him' as reflexive]



## DerFrosch

Hello everyone!

This little extract is from the novel _Tristram Shandy_ (published 1759-1767):

"_An old set-stitch'd chair [...] stood at the bed's head, opposite to the side where my father's head reclined. My uncle Toby sat him down in it._"

At first, my understanding of this was that Toby helped the character Walter (referenced to here as "_my father"_) to sit down - this is what it would mean in modern English, right?

However, later on in the chapter it becomes clear that it's in fact Toby who sits in the chair. So _him_, then, must be a reflexive pronoun.

This made me curious - how common was this back in the days? Did it coexist with the longer reflexive forms (_him - himself, her - herself _and so on)? When did it fall out of use?

I find this interesting since I believe that most (all?) Germanic languages use one-syllable pronouns - German, Swedish, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic. But not English - is there an explanation for this? I hope there's someone knowledgeable on this subject out there!


----------



## The Newt

Interesting. The "reflexive" forms date back to Old English, so they must have co-existed.


----------



## JulianStuart

You can also find "_I_ sat _me_ down" in older works of English - including Hamlet - instead of the more usual (more modern?) "I sat myself down." (Act v, scene 2, l. 35)


----------



## Miss Julie

To me, _"My uncle Toby sat him down in it_" means that Toby physically guided the father onto the chair.


----------



## CapnPrep

DerFrosch said:


> This made me curious - how common was this back in the days? Did it coexist with the longer reflexive forms (_him - himself, her - herself _and so on)? When did it fall out of use?


The OED entry for _him_ has a section on reflexive uses in place of _himself_ in various syntactic functions throughout the history of English. The example in this thread corresponds to:


> 3. c. As direct object. Freq. (esp. in early use) with a verb of motion or posture. Now _arch._ and _poet._


Here are a couple of the cited examples:

1645    Milton _Passion_ iii, in  _Poems_ 17   				Then lies him meekly down fast by his Brethrens side.

1719    in  T. D'Urfey _Wit & Mirth_ III. 266   				Of all Occupations, A Beggar lives the best; For when he is a weary, He'll lie him down and rest.
1909    _Living Age_ 30 Oct. 296/2   				There he sat him down contentedly on an anthill, in delightful anticipation of watching passing motor cars.


----------



## fdb

Also in the KJV of the Bible, Ruth 4,1: “Then went Boaz up to the gate, and sat him down there”, that is: “sat himself down” (the Hebrew, Greek and Latin all use an intransitive verb here). The OED example from 1909 is evidently modeled on this passage.


----------



## berndf

The action-verb _sit down _(_sit_ is normally a state-verb and this use is somewhat perplexing) developed out of a reflexive use of the causative derivation _set_, i.e. (translated entirely into modern English) _he set him[self] down > he sat down._ You find the original expression until at least the early 16th century: _The aungel of God..toke a-wey the stoon and sette hym downe vppon yt _(Source, meaning _1. (c)_). The form _he sat him down_ is obviously a transition stage from the transformation of the reflexive causative _set him down_ to the intransitive _sit down_.


----------



## Ben Jamin

Is it right to call "him" in this example a reflexive pronoun? 
It looks as a general third person singular masculine pronoun that can both be used for transitive and intransitive meaning (i.e. reflexive). In some contexts it can serve to denote an intransitive action,  but "reflexive" it is not. It should have an clearly reflexive meaning to be called reflexive.


----------



## DerFrosch

Thanks to everyone and especially berndf, your explanation definitely seems to make sense.



Ben Jamin said:


> Is it right to call "him" in this example a reflexive pronoun?
> It looks as a general third person singular masculine pronoun that can both be used for transitive and intransitive meaning (i.e. reflexive). In some contexts it can serve to denote an intransitive action,  but "reflexive" it is not. It should have an clearly reflexive meaning to be called reflexive.



Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but to me a pronoun is always reflexive when it denotes the same person as the subject in the clause, which is the case here. My go-to encyclopedia seems to support this view.


----------



## Cenzontle

"...when *you get you a* sandwich"
The second "you" is a one-syllable reflexive indirect object pronoun.
In standard English, the above would be "when you get [for] yourself a sandwich".
I occasionally hear this construction in present-day colloquial U.S. English, though not among college graduates.
You can find many more present-day examples with a websearch for "you get you a".


----------



## Ben Jamin

DerFrosch said:


> Thanks to everyone and especially berndf, your explanation definitely seems to make sense.
> 
> 
> 
> Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but to me a pronoun is always reflexive when it denotes the same person as the subject in the clause, which is the case here. My go-to encyclopedia seems to support this view.


Well, it may function in a reflexive way, but it is not a pronoun which is different than "the ordinary him", is it? How can you tell the two different "him" from each other?


----------



## francisgranada

When did disappear the "true" reflexive prounoun (corresponding to German _sich_) from English?

(Maybe we have already been speaking about it, but I can't find it ...)


----------



## berndf

We don't know. It is already missing in the oldest Anglo-Saxon texts and also in the oldest texts in continental Old-Saxon.


----------



## fdb

However, if English “self”, Germanic *selbaz-, really comes from IE *swe- then it can be argued that English never lost the IE reflexive.


----------



## fdb

Is "himself" not a pronoun?


----------



## francisgranada

Yes, but "himself" is surely not the etymological counterpart of the German _sich _or the Swedish _sig_, for example.


----------



## berndf

francisgranada said:


> Yes, but "himself" is surely not the etymological counterpart of the German _sich _or the Swedish _sig_, for example.


No, certainly not. The etymological correspondence in German ist _selb-_.


----------



## francisgranada

... and _själv _in Swedish. _Himself/herself/itself_ are not even used always exactly the same way/in the same sens as _sich _in German. It corresponds rather e.g. to Spanish "sí mismo" or Italian "se stesso" than to the "simple" reflexive pronouns _se, si_. 

Did _him/her_ generally work in function of the reflexive pronoun in the oldest documented English texts, or the tendency was rather not to mark the reflexiveness at all?  (I mean cases like _I wash_, which can mean both _yo lavo_ and _yo me lavo_)


----------



## berndf

Ben Jamin said:


> Well, it may function in a reflexive way, but it is not a pronoun which is different than "the ordinary him", is it? How can you tell the two different "him" from each other?


I guess only by context. Since the simple reflexive dosn't exist, there is in inherent ambiguity between reflexive and transitive uses where subject and object are only contingently and not concetually the same. In spoken language you can distinguish by stress:
_He *injured *himself_ (reflexive)
_He injured *himself*_ (transitive)

In other Germanic language you can use the emphaphic reflexive to mark transitive uses:
_Er verletzte sich_ (reflexive)
_Er verletzte sich selbst _(transitive)
(Example from German but from what Francisgranada wrote above, it seems to be the same in Swedish).


----------



## Ben Jamin

berndf said:


> I guess only by context. Since the simple reflexive dosn't exist, there is in inherent ambiguity between reflexive and transitive uses where subject and object are only contingently and not concetually the same. In spoken language you can distinguish by stress:
> _He *injured *himself_ (reflexive)
> _He injured *himself*_ (transitive)


This is exactly the reason I object to calling "him" a reflexive pronoun. If you use a stone or a candlestick to drive in a nail, you can call the stone or a candlestick a hammer, but it still is not a genuine hammer.


----------



## CapnPrep

Ben Jamin said:


> This is exactly the reason I object to calling "him" a reflexive pronoun.


What I object to is the idea that "reflexive" and "transitive" are somehow in opposition. It sounds like you are saying that _himself_ and _sich_ in some of berndf's examples are not reflexive pronouns.


----------



## francisgranada

Ben Jamin said:


> This is exactly the reason I object to calling "him" a reflexive pronoun. If you use a stone or a candlestick to drive in a nail, you can call the stone or a candlestick a hammer, but it still is not a genuine hammer.


If the pronoun _him _was clearly used as a reflexive pronoun, then why not? The pronouns _me, te, nos, os_ in Spanish are also called reflexive pronouns, inspite the fact that they are also personal pronouns.

P.S. The situation in Polish and other Slavic languages may be a bit different, because the "proper" reflexive pronouns (se, si, sa, sie ...) are used in all persons, so there is a clear distinction between the reflexive and the personal pronouns (both formally and in their usage).


----------



## learnerr

CapnPrep said:


> What I object to is the idea that "reflexive" and "transitive" are somehow in opposition.


Why they shouldn't? They express different ideas. Reflexive pronouns characterise the nature of action. To do something for oneself is not the same as to do something. Transitive usage implies that the action is a general one, and that the subject and the object are the same is merely a coincidence, not worth special discussion; what is characterised is not the action, but its object.


----------



## berndf

Ben Jamin said:


> This is exactly the reason I object to calling "him" a reflexive pronoun. If you use a stone or a candlestick to drive in a nail, you can call the stone or a candlestick a hammer, but it still is not a genuine hammer.


It is still a relatively rare case where you have competing transitive and reflexive interpretations of a given sentence in a given context. In practice the ambiguity is rarely a problem.


----------

