Editing Japanese grammar (section)

===Reflexive pronouns===
English has a reflexive form of each [[personal pronoun]] (''himself'', ''herself'', ''itself'', ''themselves'', etc.); Japanese, in contrast, has one main reflexive {{transliteration|ja|daimeishi}}, namely {{nihongo3||自分|jibun}}, which can also mean 'I'. The uses of the reflexive (pro)nouns in the two languages are very different, as demonstrated by the following literal translations (*=impossible, ??=ambiguous):
{| class="wikitable"
! example !! reason
|- valign="top"
| {{fs interlinear|lang=ja|＊ 歴史 は 自分 を 繰り返す。|* Rekishi wa jibun o kurikaesu.|History repeats itself.}}
| the target of {{transliteration|ja|jibun}} must be animate
|- valign="top"
| {{fs interlinear|lang=ja|ひろし は 健司 に 自分 の こと を 話した。|Hiroshi wa Kenji ni jibun no koto o hanashita.|Hiroshi talked to Kenji about himself ({{=}}Hiroshi).}}
| there is no ambiguity in this translation, as explained below
|- valign="top"
| {{fs interlinear|lang=ja|？？ 誠 は 静子 が 自分 を 大事 に する こと を 期待 して いる。|?? Makoto wa Shizuko ga jibun o daiji ni suru koto o kitai shite iru.|*Makoto expects that Shizuko will take good care of himself ({{=}}Makoto; note that Shizuko is female).}}
Either "Makoto expects that Shizuko will take good care of him", or "Makoto expects that Shizuko will take good care of herself."
| {{transliteration|ja|jibun}} can be in a different sentence or dependent clause, but its target is ambiguous
|}{{Citation needed|date=May 2025}}

If the sentence has more than one grammatical or semantic subject, then the target of {{transliteration|ja|jibun}} is the subject of the ''primary'' or ''most prominent action''; thus in the following sentence {{transliteration|ja|jibun}} refers unambiguously to Shizuko (even though Makoto is the grammatical subject) because the primary action is Shizuko's reading.{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}}

{{fs interlinear|indent=3|lang=ja
|誠 は 静子 に 自分 の 家 で 本 を 読ませた。
|Makoto wa Shizuko ni jibun no uchi de hon o yomaseta.
|Makoto made Shizuko read book(s) in her house.}}

In practice the main action is not always discernible, in which case such sentences are ambiguous. The use of {{transliteration|ja|jibun}} in complex sentences follows non-trivial rules.

There are also equivalents to {{transliteration|ja|jibun}} such as {{transliteration|ja|mizukara}}. Other uses of the [[reflexive pronoun]] in English are covered by adverbs like {{transliteration|ja|hitorideni}} which is used in the sense of "by oneself". For example,

{{fs interlinear|indent=3|lang=ja
|機械 が ひとりでに 動き出した。
|kikai ga hitorideni ugokidashita.
|The machine started operating by itself.}}

Change in a verb's [[Valency (linguistics)|valency]] is not accomplished by use of reflexive pronouns (in this Japanese is like English but unlike many other European languages). Instead, separate (but usually related) [[intransitive verb]]s and [[transitive verb]]s are used. In modern Japanese, there is no longer any productive morphology to derive new transitive verbs from intransitive ones, or vice versa.{{Citation needed|date=May 2025}}