Building off of the last post.

[drivebyluna.livejournal.com]

What the difference between caм and себя?

Comments

[mr-vally.livejournal.com]

the case

сам - nominative case
себя - accusative case

увидел сам себя в зеркало=he saw himself in the mirror

[fineto.livejournal.com]

Сам is 'oneself' in meaning "in one`s own, without assistance", for example "Я сам готовлю еду" - "I cook by MYself"
Cебя is pronoun in genitive case, 'one`s own self', for example "Я себя уважаю" - "I respect MYself", "Он увидел себя со стороны" - "He saw HIMself from an outsider`s viewpoint".

[mr-vally.livejournal.com]

You sure себя is the genitive?

[pigmeich.livejournal.com]

They are the same, you know it.

[mr-vally.livejournal.com]

no they are not
and - no, i don't know it, fortunately))

the two guys belong to different groups of pronouns
according to Prof. Rosental:
сам is a relative pronoun
себя is a reflexive pronoun
a tomato and his mate potato, that's what they are

the whole nominative-accusative case analogy has been given for the sake of easy explanation, in order not to crank the beginner's head with the formal pronoun classification

not to mention that the genitive of 'self' is meaninglessly ridiculous, to say the least

[pigmeich.livejournal.com]

http://www.gramota.ru/slovari/dic/?word=%F1%E5%E1%FF&all=x

Those of your kind went nuts with Rosental.

[mr-vally.livejournal.com]

when you get at least a mile close to rosental's toe finger, i'll get nuts with pevzner, ok?

a dictionary is just a dictionary, mere xray'd skeleton of a language
rosental lays meat onto this skeleton, and i don't see any reason why he should be wrong
btw, on your link it gives genitive and accusative. so why do you think it's only genitive?

once again - сам and себя ARE NOT different forms of one and the same word, they are different grammatical entities with no fixed and direct relation between them

but the whole idea is that should you have had any background in linguistics or at least in theoretical grammar, you wouldn't have used a spelling (my ass!) dictionary to justify dubious statements about the grammar (sic!) structure of a language
kudos

[pigmeich.livejournal.com]

> btw, on your link it gives genitive and accusative. so why do you think it's only genitive?

I didn't say it.

> once again - сам and себя ARE NOT different forms of one and the same word, they are different grammatical entities with no fixed and direct relation between them

I didn't same negative either.

[fineto.livejournal.com]

it is reflexive, but also - genitive and akkuzative, m.b.
Сам - nominative, себя - g. and akk., себе - dative, собой - instrumental.

[mr-vally.livejournal.com]

no
they fall under different pronoun categories
there's no case relationship b/w сам and себя

the case paradigm you showed is given to beginner studs just to settle those forms in the mind and to get used to them

[fineto.livejournal.com]

The form of gen.and akk. and the reflexive form just match.

[mr-vally.livejournal.com]

so you don't get agree that the genitive of сам is meaningless? and it cannot possibly survive in any living language?

and basically there's no grammatical accusative form of сам, - себя is just a different pronoun

i may consider a different grammar approach if you give me sound proof-links, other than spelling guides ))

[mr-vally.livejournal.com]

don't agree instead of don't get agree, of course

[krl-pgh.livejournal.com]

If you can replace "myself" by "all by myself" without loosing the meaning, it's "сам".
If you can't, it's "себя", though sometimes it won't be the best way to phrase it.

[kolldun.livejournal.com]

сам means you can do it "сам" alone etc.
себя - you can do it with yourself
kill yourself убить себя etc

and
I know you - я знаю тебя
I know myself - я знаю себя

Sorry if I made English mistakes)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deja_vue_/]

Cебя is an object in the sentence: Я люблю себя - I love myself.
Cам emphasizes the subject, the object or the action:
Сам президент подписал эту бумагу - The president himself has signed this paper (subject)
Я видел самого президента - I saw the president himself (object)
Я сам это сделал - I made it by myself (action)

[david-us.livejournal.com]

I shouldn't jump into these deep grammatical debates, but here I go.

Isn't "сам" a modifier that must agree in gender? I didn't think that it was pronoun and that it could only only be used in the nominative.

Он сам это сделал.
"He did it himself."

Она сама это сделала.
"She did it herself."

Они сами это сделали.
"They did it themselves."

That type of usage, I would think, disqualifies it as a pronoun.

себя (accusative and genitive), on the other hand, is a reflexive pronoun that is never the subject of a sentence, the nominative of which does not really exist. Or, at least, I'm not aware of it. :)

Я ударил себя по голове.
"I hit myself in the head."

Он любит говорить о себе.
"He likes talking about himself."

David Emerling
Memphis, TN