zichzelf
Dutch
Alternative forms
- zich zelf (archaic)
Etymology
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /zɪxˈzɛlf/
Audio: (file) - Hyphenation: zich‧zelf
- Rhymes: -ɛlf
Pronoun
zichzelf
Usage notes
- Zichzelf is primarily used with verbs that are optionally reflexive. Verbs with mandatory reflexivity like zich vergissen typically take zich. Exceptions to this strong tendency show up, however, though this is a marginal but not per se erroneous phenomenon. Hendriks, Spenader and Smits (2008) note in a corpus 638 occurrences of the mandatorily reflexive verb ontpoppen involving the reflexive zich, versus 1 with the reflexive zichzelf.
Descendants
- Negerhollands: siself, śisel, sie selv