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Glite Dictionary
🔁 Self-relation property 🙋 Referring to self
reflexiveness

reflexiveness

9.4
A pronoun that refers back to the subject of the sentence
  • noun
  • /rɪˈflɛksɪvnəs/
  • Specialized
translation icon : reflexividad
  • The concept of reflexiveness helps clarify how languages use pronouns to relate actions back to their subjects.
  • self-reflexiveness

Examples

  • Understanding reflexiveness in sentences is crucial for learning how to construct grammatically correct phrases.

  • Furthermore, these two novels, thirty-three years apart, illustrate the distance that can separate two authors approaching the same problem through the same practice of self-reflexiveness.

    Academic text (1997)

  • Chekhov's prose is laconic and transparent, devoid of self-reflexiveness, its main purpose being the realistic mimesis of contemporary Russian life.

    Academic text (2003)

  • Instances of critical self-reflexiveness in the historical narrative therefore not only further the interpretation of the (past) phenomena and interests of the modernist era under study, but also record the (present) attitude of the interpreter.

    Academic text (1994)

  • The narrator's frequent use of the second person, a seductive "you" that invites the reader's complicity, augments the self-reflexiveness of Weldon's texts.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • In grammar, reflexiveness occurs when a pronoun refers back to the subject, as in 'He washed himself.'

Synonyms

reflexivity
vsreflexiveness
  • Formal
9.1

A word like 'himself' or 'herself' that refers back to the subject in the same sentence

is the general grammatical property of a reflexive pronoun referring back to its subject

Surface Forms

reflexiveness singular
reflexivenesses plural

Morphology

reflexiveness = reflexive (transparent) = reflex + ness

Clear nominalization of the adjective 'reflexive' (grammar), so the noun meaning is directly derived and predictable for learners.

Etymology

Reflexiveness comes from Latin parts re- 'back' and flect 'bend', the same idea you see in words like reflex and reflect. So, in grammar, reflexiveness means a pronoun 'bends back' to the subject, which is why the pronoun refers to the same person who does the action.