The Esperanto Reflexive: si and sia vs li and lia

Si and sia point back at the subject of their own clause. English his can mean his own or another man's; Esperanto has a word for each.

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1. 1Ŝi staras kun sia hundo.
2. 2Ŝia aŭto atendas.
3. 3Ŝi tenas sian ombrelon.

Ŝi staras kun sia hundo: she is standing with her (own) dog. Ŝia aŭto atendas: her car is waiting; it is hers, but the car is the subject, so ŝia. Ŝi tenas sian ombrelon: she is holding her (own) umbrella.

The forms

Si is the pronoun, sia its possessive. Both take the ordinary endings: -n for the object, and sia agrees like any adjective.

• Li parolis pri si. - He talked about himself.
• Li defendis sin. - He defended himself.
• Ili venis kun siaj amikoj. - They came with their (own) friends.

There is nothing new in the endings: the -n is the accusative, and the agreement is the one from nouns and adjectives.

Third person only

Si serves the whole third person: he, she, it, they, and oni (one). I and you need nothing new:

There is only one mi in a sentence, so min is already clear. In the third person, lin could be a second man, so Esperanto spends a word on the difference.

Never the subject

Si points back at a subject, so it cannot be one, and sia cannot sit inside one. Use lia, ŝia or ilia there, even for the person's own things:

• Lia patro amas lin. - His father loves him. (never sia patro)
• Li kaj lia frato venis. - He and his brother came. (never sia frato)
• Lia hundo estas granda. - His dog is big. (never sia hundo)

In the second sentence, he and his brother are both the subject, so nothing in it can be sia.

Inside a ke clause

Si looks at the subject of its own clause, not of the whole sentence:

In the second row, the brother is the subject of the ke clause, so sia is ruled out. In the third, the clause's subject is mi, which never uses si, so the man who asked is lin.

Infinitives: say it with ke

An infinitive has no subject of its own, so the rule has less to grip:

• Li petis la knabon helpi sin. - He asked the boy to help himself.

The usual reading takes sin as the boy, the one doing the helping, but not every reader parses it that way. A ke clause leaves no doubt:

• Li petis, ke la knabo helpu sin. - He asked the boy to help himself.
• Li petis, ke la knabo helpu lin. - He asked the boy to help him.

Each other, and si mem

With a plural subject, sin can mean themselves or each other:

• Ili amas sin. - They love themselves. / They love each other.

Context usually settles it. When it does not, the reciprocal has its own phrase:

• Ili amas unu la alian. - They love each other.
• Ili parolis unu kun la alia. - They talked with each other.

Unu never changes; alia takes whatever its job needs: -n as the object, nothing after kun.

Mem (self) adds emphasis. With sin it stresses the object; with a subject it stresses who did it, and has nothing to do with the reflexive:

• Li vidis sin mem. - He saw himself (and nobody else).
• Li mem faris tion. - He did it himself.

Reach for -iĝ- before sin

Where French or Spanish would use a reflexive verb, Esperanto usually has -iĝ-:

For things, -iĝ- is the natural choice: la pordo malfermis sin pictures the door opening itself, as if it acted. For a person moving deliberately, li levis sin is also correct and common. Keep sin where the subject really acts on itself, as in li kaŝis sin. The -ig- and -iĝ- article has the system.

Mistakes English speakers make

What to do next

1. Describe a friend's morning with sian, then with lian for someone else's things.
2. Put each sentence after li diris, ke and check whose sia it now is.
3. Then read participles: another way to fold a clause into a sentence.

See also

• Personal pronouns - mi, vi, li and their possessives, where sia first appears.
• Subordinate clauses - where si stops pointing at the main subject.
• Reported speech - the pronoun traps when you report what someone said.
• -ig- and -iĝ- - the suffix that does most of what other languages use reflexive verbs for.