Reflexive verbs (se)

Lesson opening

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Reflexive verbs: se with the verb

Zovem se Ana “my name is Ana”, Radujem se “I’m glad”, Bojim se “I’m afraid”: each of these has the short word se. You already know it as a pronoun, the short “oneself” (the lesson “Reflexive sebe/se”). Now we look at it from the other side, from the side of the verb. A huge family of Serbian verbs lives together with se: zvati se “to be called”, radovati se “to be glad, to look forward to”, bojati se “to be afraid”, sećati se “to remember”, sviđati se “to be liked, to appeal to”. English has nothing quite like this family. Sometimes it uses a -self word (I wash myself), sometimes each other, and very often nothing at all (I’m afraid, I remember). If you know French or German, you have met the family before: French je me lave, je me souviens, German ich wasche mich, ich freue mich.

The thing to grasp from the start is that se is not part of the verb’s spelling. It is a separate word, and it moves around the sentence: Perem se, but Ja se perem. It is a clitic: a short unstressed word that cannot start a sentence and takes the second place, as in the lesson “Basic word order”. In this lesson we sort the verbs with se into four kinds, learn where se goes, and see which case follows such a verb.

se goes along with the verb but does not stick to it

Take prati se “to wash (oneself)”. We conjugate the verb, and se simply comes along:

The verb changes, perem → pereš → pere, while one se serves everyone. English needs myself, yourself, himself…; Serbian has one se. But the most important thing is where this se stands. It takes the second position in the sentence, and it does not have to hug the verb at all. Watch it jump:

In the first sentence the verb comes first, and se follows straight after it. But as soon as the pronoun ja or the time phrase svako jutro appears in front, se comes away from the verb and takes its place after them, second. In a question with da li, it comes straight after li. What exactly can fill the first place is covered in detail in the lesson “The second-place rule”.

Type 1. Truly reflexive: an action done to oneself

This is the core of the family: verbs where se really does mean “oneself” and the action comes back to the doer. Such a se can be replaced by the full sebe when you want to stress “myself, not anyone else” (the lesson “Reflexive sebe/se”): Vidim se u ogledalu “I see myself in the mirror”, and with emphasis Vidim sebe u ogledalu.

These verbs have a “direct” twin with some other object: oblačim dete “I dress the child” against oblačim se “I get dressed”, perem tanjire “I wash the plates” against perem se “I wash”. Here se fills the place of an ordinary object. The test is simple: you can put another person or thing in its place, and the verb keeps its meaning; only the person being dressed or washed changes.

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Reflexive verbs: se with the verb

Reflexive verb (povratni glagol): a verb with the clitic se (a short unstressed word in second place). Only the verb conjugates; se never changes: perem se, pereš se, pere se, peremo se, perete se, peru se (“to wash oneself”, prati se). se is a separate word, not a suffix.

Where se goes: second place

Verb first: se right after it. Subject or time phrase in front: se comes after them. In a question: right after li. Never the first word.

The four roles of se

se changes the meaning: zvati call — zvati se be called; vratiti give back — vratiti se come back; brinuti trouble — brinuti se worry; nalaziti find — nalaziti se be located.

Companion case, “to like”, the past

• Genitive: bojati se, plašiti se be afraid, sećati se remember: bojim se mraka, sećam se detinjstva, sećam se tebe.
• Dative: radovati se look forward to, nadati se hope, diviti se admire, smejati se laugh at: radujem se letu, nadam se uspehu, Ne smej mi se!
• sviđati se / dopadati se “to like”: the person who likes is in the dative; the thing liked is the subject, and the verb agrees with it. Sviđa mi se tvoja ideja. I like your idea. Da li ti se sviđa grad? Do you like the city? Ne dopadaju mi se ove cipele. I don’t like these shoes. Same with činiti se: Čini mi se “it seems to me”. Dative first: mi se, ti se.
• Past: in the 3rd person singular, je drops out next to se: Vratio se kući., Ana se obradovala., Dete se već umorilo. Other persons keep it: vratio sam se, vratili su se.