Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>In French, when the object of a transitive verb is omitted, it can ONLY
mean
>that it is undetermined ('je mange', identical to 'I eat'), NEVER that it
is
>identical to the subject. When the subject and the object are identical,
>reflexive pronouns are mandatory: 'je me lave': 'I wash MYSELF', 'je me
>douche': 'I shower MYSELF' (OK, in English you'd rather say 'I take a
>shower' :)) ). If you say: 'je lave' in French, you'll get automatically
the
>question: 'tu laves QUOI ?': 'WHAT do you wash?'.
>
>The second use of the reflexive, in which case the reflexive corresponds to
an
>indirect object rather than a direct object, is to mark kind of a middle
voice:
>the action happens to oneself or in oneself, or for oneself's benefit.
Hence
>verbs like "se dire" ('je me dis que': 'I think that', 'I tell myself
that') or
>expressions like 'je me prends...': 'I get me....' (to be interpretated as
'I
>get... for myself'). The other example you gave: 'je me lave les mains': 'I
>wash myself the hands' (not 'MY hands') can be considered to be part of the
>same scheme (the action affects the subject, so it's middle voice). I can
also
>be explained by the fact that when the object is mandatorily possessed by
the
>subject (usually only body parts), the possession is not marked by a
possessive
>adjective but by a reflexive pronoun (it may also be a case that the
reflexive
>is used because the object is partly identical with the subject, i.e. it's
a
>part of the subject, thus coming back to the first case :) ). This is the
only
>case that it truly not straightforward in the use of the reflexive pronoun
in
>French, but if you take it as a manifestation of its use to mark middle
voice,
>it will become easier to understand.
>
>As you can see, the use of the reflexive is really simple. It's used in two
>cases:
>- subject identical to object,
>- middle voice.
And in addition to the above, Spanish and Italian have their wonderful
"passive" use (French has _on_ for this)-- se dice, se habla español; si
parla italiano. As well as less classifiable things like (Span.) se me
ocurre 'it occurs to me...'; se me olvidó 'I forgot ~it slipped my mind'; me
voy 'I'm going (away)' , Fr. je m'en vais, Ital. me ne vado.