Intensive pronoun

An intensive pronoun (or self-intensifier) adds emphasis to a statement; for example, "I did it myself." While English intensive pronouns (e.g., myself, yourself, himself, herself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves) use the same form as reflexive pronouns, an intensive pronoun is different from a reflexive pronoun because it functions as an adverbial or adnominal modifier, not as an argument of a verb. Both intensive and reflexive pronouns make reference to an antecedent. For example, compare "I will do it myself," where "myself" is a self-intensifier indicating that nobody else did it, to "I sold myself," where "myself" fills the argument role of direct object.[1] This sentence may be extended, as in "I sold myself myself," where the second pronoun emphasizes the fact that nobody helped me to sell myself.

  1. ^ Leonardi, Vanessa (2012). Cognitive English Grammar. libreriauniversitaria.it ed. p. 40. ISBN 9788862923026. Leonardi is a professor at the University of Ferrara, Italy; see "Leonardi Vanessa". Università degli studi di Ferrara. Retrieved 2014-04-07.