General Question on Reflexive Verbs

Question

I've done a lot of searching on this subject and I can't quite find the answer I'm looking for. I want to understand what it means to be "reflexive" and can any verb be reflexive. I understand that reflexive verb means that the direct or indirect object of the sentence is the subject. So I wash myself, the 'wash' part with myself is reflexive. Llavarse I know is a common reflexive verb for instance.

My question is: Can any verb be reflexive? It seems like reflexive verbs is a transformation of a verb using the reflexive pronouns. So 'comer' means to eat. If I want to say: I eat myself could I say: Yo me como.

I understand most people don't say this but my real question is can't anything be reflexive even if it isn't a common thing to say? If it can't then why?

Answer 1

I think 'reflexive verb' per se is a bit of a misnomer and is mistakenly applied to all verbs that appear with se tacked on the end. These kind of verbs are in fact pronominal verbs which may sometimes be used reflexively but at other times the pronoun serves another purpose.

Eg. Some verbs are given intensity when the pronominal form is used, comer to eat, isnt reflexive when the pronoun is added, instead comerse means to eat all up.

Me la comí. I ate it all up.

Me comí una empanada. I ate an empanada (all up).

A verb when used reflexively just means that the person doing the action of the verb also receives the action of the verb. To express this a reflexive pronoun is added to match the conjugation of the verb. Ie. if the verb is conjugated to the yo form then the pronoun 'me' is used: me ducho - I shower (myself). The same verb can be used without a pronoun, non-reflexively. No duches al gato. Don't spray (shower) the cat.

I still would say based on that logic that: Yo me como. Means I eat myself. I'm receiving the action of the verb which happens to be eating, right? - hershey964, Feb 14, 2013

Sure, rather strange but sure :) - Kiwi-Girl, Feb 14, 2013

The reason I ask is I don't wanna memorize every single reflexive verb I wanna know I can "in theory" do that to any verb. As of now if I wanna say "I teach myself spanish". I think I could say: me enseno espanol. - hershey964, Feb 14, 2013

Can I do that? It seems like as long it's reasonable to do to yourself that it's ok. But there always seems to be special cases. - hershey964, Feb 14, 2013

Answer 2

Actually, people do say "comerse," but not in the sense you said it. It would just put a special emphasis on the verb, I can't really explain it. My theory would be yes, you can, though in practice you'd sound a little weird with a lot of them, and people would just think you don't know Spanish very well. Be careful though, a lot of verbs change their meaning entirely when they become reflexive.

Snap ;) what is it they say about los genios? Jeje - Kiwi-Girl, Feb 14, 2013

Answer 3

For more info than you probably need, check out this old thread : reflexive/pronominal