Id | 2016-09-01 | ||||||||||||||||||
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Title | Intensive and Reflexive Pronouns | ||||||||||||||||||
Date | Thursday September 1st 2016 | ||||||||||||||||||
Url | http://learnersdictionary.com/qa/Intensive-and-Reflexive-Pronouns | ||||||||||||||||||
Question | Is this sentence correct: "I itself don't know"? — Herleen, India |
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Answer | The word itself is an intensive pronoun and it is used to add emphasis to (or intensify) the word it. The intensive pronoun that goes with I is myself, so the correct sentence is "I myself don’t know." This is a little different from just saying "I don't know." By adding emphasis to I, what you are saying is, "I don't know, but maybe someone who is not me does know." Below are some sentences using intensive pronouns.
Itself and myself are also used as reflexive pronouns. A reflexive pronoun is used when the person receiving the action of a verb (the object of the sentence) is the same person doing the action (the subject of the sentence). For example, if I cook a meal, and the person eating the meal is also me, we would say "I cooked a meal for myself" or "I cooked myself a meal." Below are some sentences using reflexive pronouns.
Below is a table of pronouns and the intensive or reflexive pronouns to use with them:
You can recognize intensive and reflexive pronouns because they all end in -self or -selves. The important thing to remember when using intensive or reflexive pronouns is that the person or thing they refer to is the same person or thing already mentioned.
I hope this helps. |
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