Date: Thu, 6 Nov 1997 10:45:33 -0500

From: Mark Mandel Mark[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]DRAGONSYS.COM

Subject: Reflexives



elisa vazquez iglesias iaevi[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]USC.ES asks:



Could you say "Shall I fix yourself a sandwich?"?[1] What about "Shall

I fix himself a sandwich?"?[2] Do you find any grammatical difference

between these two sentences?[3]



1: NO!!!!

2: NO!!!!

3: NO!!!! They're both HORRIBLE!!!!

... except, for #2, in a usage that you're probably not thinking

about, which I believe has been discussed here, in which "himself" is

used with no reflexive sense to refer to the Man of the House. I think of it

as having an Irish flavor, but no doubt I will be corrected by the more

knowledgeable. This usage is no part of my speech, which is why it is

irrelevant to my answer #2.



Mark A. Mandel : Senior Linguist : mark[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]dragonsys.com

Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200

320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02160, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com/

Personal home page: http://world.std.com/~mam/