Reflexive and Intensive Pronouns Educational Resources

Reflexive pronouns refer to a noun, adjective, adverb, or pronoun that occurs before or after them in a sentence. Reflexive pronouns always end in –self or –selves. There is a relatively short list of reflexive pronouns for students to memorize. Then, teachers and students can Education.com’s worksheets, exercises, and lesson plans below to master this specific type of pronoun.

Generative grammar theory considers reflexive pronouns to be anaphors. That is, reflexive pronouns are bound to and derive meaning from the word that occurs before them.

These are the reflexive pronouns, and the pronouns they are bound to:

• I — myself
• you — yourself/yourselves
• he — himself
• she — herself
• one — oneself
• it — itself
• we — ourselves
• they — themselves

It won’t take long for your students themselves to pick up on the fact that they use pronouns in similar, yet slightly different ways.

To ensure your students have a solid foundation with reflexive pronouns before moving onto other pronouns, have them create several sample sentences talking about people or things in their daily life. Examples could include:

• The cat likes to lick itself.
• We cooked dinner ourselves.
• The chair fell down itself.

Intensive pronouns are similar to reflexive pronouns, yet differ in the fact that the intensive pronoun can be removed without altering the meaning of the sentence. Examples clearly illustrate that difference:

• Reflexive pronoun: He bought himself a ball.
• Intensive pronoun: He himself bought a ball.

In the example above, removing the reflexive pronoun ‘himself’ would remove the clarity as to who the ball was for. Removing the intensive pronoun ‘himself’ would still give the same meaning of “He bought a ball.”

Help your students find a solid foundation with reflexive pronouns by using the Education.com resources above. From there, they can move on to relative, and other types of pronouns.