# Polish and Russian: Inherent reflexive verbs



## Duya

(Split from this thread)

I need some help for the purpose of the Wikipedia article on reflexive verbs. In particular, I seek for an (a couple of) example of a reflexive verb which is "inherent", i.e. *cannot* take a non-reflexive form, in Russian, Serbo-Croatian (that I know myself), Polish, Italian and Spanish. The same verb is called for in all languages.

In the current state, Polish examples spoil the exercise, as (according to the thread linked above), "regret" is either non-reflexive or not inherently reflexive in Polish; "complain" is also not inherently reflexive in all said languages (žaliti/жаловать/żałić do have non-reflexive form, albeit semantically rather distant).

One candidate seems to be "to laugh" (smejati se/смеяться/Polish ?) but I'm not sure if Italian and Polish equivalents (*reír, ridere*) are reflexive. "Remember" is inherently reflexive in French (se souviendre) and Serbo-Croatian (sjećati se) but seemingly not in Russian (помнить, maybe I missed an equivalent?). Another is SC "pojaviti se" (show up), or "javiti se" which (seems to) have Spanish (inherently?) reflexive se aparecer and se ocurrir.

While the linguistic scope of this question extends to Romance languages as well, I see there are plenty of speakers in the Slavic Forum as well (and I don't know if it's possible to cross-post this there anyway). Please provide examples in 3rd person singular masculine present or past. Thanks in advance.


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## Jenikd43

Maybe the Russian Смеётся (He/She smiles)... I am not a native so wait for more opinions, but I believe it is inherently reflexive.


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## Duya

Jenikd43 said:


> Maybe the Russian Смеётся (He/She smiles)... I am not a native so wait for more opinions, but I believe it is inherently reflexive.



It is, but the puzzle calls for finding an inherently reflexive verb in all 5 languages, and Romance ones (Fr. rire) don't seem to fit .


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## tkekte

Maybe such a verb doesn't exist in all 5 languages? 
For slavic languages, "to laugh" is probably inherently reflexive in all of them. PL: śmiać się BG: смея се.


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## Duya

tkekte said:


> Maybe such a verb doesn't exist in all 5 languages?



Well, that's a result too (not that I'd be happy about it but nevertheless). "Repent" was so nice candidate (se arrepentio/_раскаялся_) but Polish seems to have spoiled it -- do they ever go to Church?  I'll double-check that though.



tkekte said:


> For slavic languages, "to laugh" is probably inherently reflexive in all of them. PL: śmiać się BG: смея се.



...ditto for "to fear" (бояться) I suppose. How about "restrain oneself" (Sp. contenerse/SC uzdržati se) -- Russian what? воздержаться? Polish?


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## tkekte

But you can also restrain someone else...

"To fear" is _obawiać się_ in Polish, and it doesn't seam to appear without the się. 

Russian воздержаться is somewhat old fashioned and I would translate it as.. "resist temptation". To restrain [someone] would be _придерживать_, but the reflexive counterpart _придерживаться_ means something totally different.. "to follow a certain norm". There is also the verb _удержать_, but its meaning is more like "to hold someone in place", the reflexive is regular, ie, you would be holding yourself in place.

Удержаться на ветке - Manage to stay on the branch

Of course neither of those are IR. 

Sorry to ruin your dreams of "parallelity". 
Maybe you could use inherently reflexive verbs with different meanings? Since I doubt you can find one with the exact same meaning in all 5 languages.
Just take "to laugh" as an example of IR in the Slavic languages, and something else for the Romance ones.


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## Duya

tkekte said:


> Sorry to ruin your dreams of "parallelity".
> Maybe you could use inherently reflexive verbs with different meanings? Since I doubt you can find one with the exact same meaning in all 5 languages.
> Just take "to laugh" as an example of IR in the Slavic languages, and something else for the Romance ones.



That's certainly an option, although it spoils the divine symmetry, as well as (my) assertion from the Wikipedia article that "a common subset can be generally extracted, as outlined below" -- well, it _can_, just not with the same verbs . 

The other option is to replace &*%#@ Polish examples with another west Slavic language (e.g. Czech), but I had a hard time recruiting translator volunteers. Maybe Jana would help?


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## tkekte

slovnik.seznam.cz says that "to repent" is _kát se_ in Czech, and there doesn't seem to be a non-reflexive verb "kát", so this makes it IR. 

Anyway, I dunno why you are pairing "to regret" with "to complain". Since IR verbs _lack a corresponding non-reflexive_, shouldn't this mean that the table needs only one column?


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## Thomas1

Here's something I came up with:
the verb is _to get lost_:

Polish:
zgubić się

Russian:
потеряться

Czech:
zatratit se

French:
se perdre

Spanish:
perderse

Italian:
perderesi


Sorry, I couldn't be bothered to look for a Serbo-Croatian translation, but, I guess, that's not a problem for you.



tkekte said:


> But you can also restrain someone else...
> 
> "To fear" is _obawiać się_ in Polish, and it doesn't seam to appear without the się. [...]


A small remark: I'd translate _to fear_ as _bać się_. 


Tom


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## Duya

Thomas1 said:


> Here's something I came up with:
> the verb is _to get lost_:
> 
> Polish:
> zgubić się



...but arguably, it's not *inherent *reflexive: its non-reflexive pair,  _zgubić_, is perfectly normal transitive verb meaning "to lose". While the reflexives often escape consistent classification, I'd say that the semantic shift between _zgubić_ and  _zgubić się_ is too weak for this one to qualify. As a counterexample, "se trouver"/"encontrarse"/"находиться"/"nalaziti se"/"nać się" (?) _might_ qualify, as its apparent non-reflexive verb means something utterly different.


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## Duya

tkekte said:


> Anyway, I dunno why you are pairing "to regret" with "to complain". Since IR verbs _lack a corresponding non-reflexive_, shouldn't this mean that the table needs only one column?



No, those were meant to be two distinct examples. Like I said in my previous post, жалиться (complain) has so different meaning than жалить (mourn, feel sorry for) that it arguably falls in the IR category.


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## Thomas1

Duya said:


> ...but arguably, it's not *inherent *reflexive: its non-reflexive pair, _zgubić_, is perfectly normal transitive verb meaning "to lose". While the reflexives often escape consistent classification, I'd say that the semantic shift between _zgubić_ and _zgubić się_ is too weak for this one to qualify. As a counterexample, "se trouver"/"encontrarse"/"находиться"/"nalaziti se"/"nać się" it would be _znajdować się _(your example doesn't exist in Polish, btw) (?) _might_ qualify, as its apparent non-reflexive verb means something utterly different.


I see, sorry I must have had a mind eclispe.

Another option:
to part:

Polish:
rozstać się

Russian:
расстаться

French:
se quitter/séparer

Spanish:
separarse

Italian:
separarsi

Although, here I'm pretty sure about Polish and Russian I'm not quite clear about Romance laguages.


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## tkekte

Duya said:


> No, those were meant to be two distinct examples. Like I said in my previous post, жалиться (complain) has so different meaning than жалить (mourn, feel sorry for) that it arguably falls in the IR category.


"To complain" is _жаловаться_.
"To feel sorry for" is жал*е*ть, and there is a related verb _*с*жалиться_ = to have mercy
Жал*и*ть means to sting.  Жалиться is colloquial for the same.
Жаловаться isn't an IR verb though, because there is an old fashioned verb жаловать = to grant.


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## tkekte

Thomas1 said:


> A small remark: I'd translate _to fear_ as _bać się_.
> Tom


Yeah, you're right _bać się_ gave more google results. 

I thought that _bać się_ might be less used generally, because I didn't find it much in the first person when I tried "baję się" but I did find over a million for "obawiam się". But then I decided to try "boję się" and voila, over *1.5* million results. 

Tricky irregular verbs.


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## Jana337

Thomas1 said:


> Czech:
> zatratit se


A small correction: ztratit se (zAtratit - to repudiate)


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## Duya

Well, thanks all for the suggestions. I updated the article; feel free to fix my (likely) errors.

Duja
Cамодержец on english Wikipedia (pun intended, Jana, you would likely fit there )


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## Thomas1

Duva, there's a mistake in one of the Polish examples. It now reads:
Piotr _śmia się_. (it's not Polish)
and it should be:
Piotr _śmi*eje* się_.


Tom

PS: thanks for the correction, Jana.


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## Hal1fax

Thomas1 said:


> A small remark: I'd translate _to fear_ as _bac sie_.
> 
> 
> Tom


 

I thought it was 'to be scared', but I guess there's really no difference with that and 'to fear'


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## Outsider

Duya said:


> (Split from this thread)
> 
> I need some help for the purpose of the Wikipedia article on reflexive verbs. In particular, I seek for an (a couple of) example of a reflexive verb which is "inherent", i.e. *cannot* take a non-reflexive form, in Russian, Serbo-Croatian (that I know myself), Polish, Italian and Spanish. The same verb is called for in all languages.


They are called pronominal verbs in Spanish grammar (_verbos pronominales_). How about doing a search for these words in the Spanish Grammar forum, and see what you find?

And there's also this...


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## Thomas1

Hal1fax said:


> I thought it was 'to be scared', but I guess there's really no difference with that and 'to fear'


 
Well, it can be, I must admit I was being nitpicky in that post.
I gave the most basic translation of it.
to be scared - być przerażonym
to fear - bać się
to be afraid - obawiać się

IMHO, they all can be interchangeably used as translations if the need be. 

Tom


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## Nanon

Here is a list (non exhaustive) of "essentially pronominal verbs" in French. French has quite less than Spanish. Examples working in French and Spanish may not work in other Romance languages: FR s'évanouir / ES desmayarse... but PT desmaiar and IT svenire (?)

So far I came up with:
FR se blottir / ES acurrucarse / RU съёжиться
I will try to come back with more ideas... if I can find more. Does this work in other languages?

To Duya: FR rire doesn't work... but SP reírse does. However reir also exists. See Outsider's excellent material, even more complete than the DPD here.

I also thought of SP obstinarse / FR s'obstiner / RU упрямиться but there may be other translations that are not pronominal, such as RU упорствовать or SP porfiar!

And such "essentially reflexive" actions as for instance SP suicidarse... may be expressed by other means than a pronominal _verb_: покончить _с собой_ or совершить _само_убийство!


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## Outsider

Thomas1 said:


> I gave the most basic translation of it.
> to be scared - by? przera?onym
> to fear - ba? si?
> to be afraid - obawia? si?
> 
> IMHO, they all can be interchangeably used as translations if the need be.


How about "to get scared", "to be frightened"? Is it reflexive? It is in Portuguese: _assustar-se_, _sobressaltar-se_.


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## Thomas1

Nanon said:


> Here is a list (non exhaustive) of "essentially pronominal verbs" in French. French has quite less than Spanish. Examples working in French and Spanish may not work in other Romance languages: FR s'évanouir / ES desmayarse... but PT desmaiar and IT svenire (?)
> 
> So far I came up with:
> FR se blottir / ES acurrucarse / RU съёжиться
> I will try to come back with more ideas... if I can find more. Does this work in other languages?


I am not a native of Russian, but I'd guess that съёжиться can be used in its non-reflexive form--съёжить, and the meanings are not that far away from each other (a typical difference between pronominal and regular verb). That would be the case in Polish too (skulić się).



Nanon said:


> To Duya: FR rire doesn't work... but SP reírse does. However reir also exists. See Outsider's excellent material, even more complete than the DPD here.


I did some reasearch, and it turns out that _rire_ has its pronominal form:





> *III. *_Empl. pronom. _*Se rire* (vieilli ou littér.). S'amuser, se divertir. P. métaph. _Le lendemain, un pur soleil se riait sur les vagues_ (TOULET, _Mariage Don Quichotte_, 1902, p. 25).​
> Source​


I'm not completely clear about the meaning, but my huch is that it's somewhat different from Spanish _reírse_, Polish _śmiać się_ and Russian _смеяться_, isn't it?




Nanon said:


> I also thought of SP obstinarse / FR s'obstiner / RU упрямиться but there may be other translations that are not pronominal, such as RU упорствовать or SP porfiar!
> 
> And such "essentially reflexive" actions as for instance SP suicidarse... may be expressed by other means than a pronominal _verb_: покончить _с собой_ or совершить _само_убийство!


Russian _упрямиться_ seems to be "inherently reflexive", if there are such equivalents then, I guess, they fit the bill. 


Tom


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## Thomas1

Outsider said:


> How about "to get scared", "to be frightened"? Is it reflexive? It is in Portuguese: _assustar-se_, _sobressaltar-se_.


Yes it is--_przestraszyć się_; _перепугаться_; however these are normally used as well, _i.e._ in their non-reflexive forms. Isn't that the case in Portugese?


Tom


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## Duya

Thomas1 said:


> Russian _упрямиться_ seems to be "inherently reflexive", if there are such equivalents then, I guess, they fit the bill.



Ugh, it seems so obscure that I don't know how to start looking at Romance language translations. Serbo-Croatian equivalent is "(uz)joguniti se", also IR.

It seems that tkekte's suspicion was right, and that there is no (or might easily not be) verb which would satisfy the (rather harsh) conditions in all 5 languges. "Repent" came closest, with the said exception of Polish common usage (zalować). Actually, I did find kajać się, but, it seems archaic and/or obscure in modern Polish. Or is it? (google)


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## Outsider

Thomas1 said:


> Yes it is--[...]; however these are normally used as well, _i.e._ in their non-reflexive forms. Isn't that the case in Portugese?


Yeah, you're right. I forgot that the base verbs can also be transitive. Sorry.


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## Thomas1

Duya said:


> Ugh, it seems so obscure that I don't know how to start looking at Romance language translations. Serbo-Croatian equivalent is "(uz)joguniti se", also IR.


I think a native's comment is indispensable now.
In Polish _upierać się _is not at all obscure and it meets the requirements.



> It seems that tkekte's suspicion was right, and that there is no (or might easily not be) verb which would satisfy the (rather harsh) conditions in all 5 languges. "Repent" came closest, with the said exception of Polish common usage (zalować). Actually, I did find kajać się, but, it seems archaic and/or obscure in modern Polish. Or is it? (google)


I hear this verb from time to time (read--it's used (very) sparingly). It would be fine in the context of confession--_kajać się za grzechy_, but rather unlikely to be the first choice. It may sound kind of high-brow in some contexts.



Tom

 It's occured to me now that we partly brought up this topic in Slavic Languages forum. I hate to give a reference to my post but it sort of starts the discussion (scroll down a bit) in which a Spanish speaker participated comparing the usage of the reflexive pronoun in Spanish with its Slavic counterpart.


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## Nanon

Thomas1 said:


> Russian _упрямиться_ seems to be "inherently reflexive", if there are such equivalents then, I guess, they fit the bill.
> Tom



I'm afraid it won't... *Упрямить* кого - делать упрямым!
Dahl had the last word... Sorry, my example wasn't so good.

To Thomas1 : "se rire de qch" = "se moquer de qch". The meaning is different indeed.

To Outsider: PT assustar-se, SP asustarse seemed to work well until I came and said loudly (in a «самодержица» tone): No. FR "avoir peur" is not reflexive. Plus, Outsider already confirmed that you may frighten somebody else in Portuguese too. And in French, the less frequent "s'effaroucher" or "s'effrayer" are not only pronominal - this is also true in other languages as Outsider said.

Are we hunting a myth with this "universal" reflexivity?


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