Pronouns (4)

D) Reflexive pronouns

Reflexive pronouns are myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, oneself, ourselves, yourselves,
and themselves. A common use of reflexive pronouns is to talk about actions where the subject
and object is the same person. Indonesian grammar has a unique word sendiri to use for that purpose. Look at the following examples:

Saya sendiri melakukan itu
= I did it myself (meaning I also did it, not only you, he, she, or they)

Saya melakukan itu sendiri
= I did it (by) myself (meaning nobody else helped me)

Putting the suffix an after sendiri (to become sendirian) changes the meaning into alone:
Saya melakukan itu sendirian
= I did it alone (= I did it when I was alone)

Saya (ada) sendirian kemarin
= I was alone yesterday
Saya belajar sendirian kemarin
= I studied alone yesterday (= I was alone yesterday studying)

Beliau sendiri mengatakan kepada saya
= He/she spoke to me him/herself

Rumahnya sendiri bagus, tapi halamannya terlalu sempit.
= The house itself is nice, but the garden is too small.

Mereka sendiri membangun rumah itu
= They built the house themselves

As we have seen above, a unique word sendiri is placed after the corresponding subject to mean myself, yourself, him/herself, etc. An additional note will be of worth about the word sendiri. First, it is separable into sen-di-ri. Second, its root word is diri, meaning self or selves.
I will later explore the use of Indonesian words relating to phrases using the word self or selves.

Regards,

Ika