sich

Forms

sich (both accusative and dative)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German sich, inherited from Old High German sih, inherited from Proto-Germanic *sek.^[2][3][1] The same pronoun is Gothic 𐍃𐌹𐌺 (sik), Old Norse sik, Old Frisian sik and Middle Low German sik.^[2][3][4] It was built, like mich and dich, on the reflexive pronoun Proto-Indo-European *se-, which also gave Latin sē, Lithuanian -si and Old Church Slavonic сѧ (sę).^[2][5][6] Pfeifer adds Ancient Greek ἕ (hé), Sanskrit स्वयम् (svayám, “self”) and Russian себя (sebjá), and traces all of them to pronominal stems whose first meaning was “apart, separately, by oneself”.^[3][7]

The pronoun was originally only an accusative.^[2][3][8] Gothic had a separate dative 𐍃𐌹𐍃 (sis), but Old High German no longer had one and used the dative forms of er instead.^[9][10] Old English and Old Saxon gave up the reflexive pronoun altogether and used the personal pronoun.^[3][10] Dutch zich was borrowed from German.^[3][8] The pronoun has nothing to do with sicher.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German sih is recorded from the 8th century, first in glosses of about 765 and then in the Mondsee fragments, Tatian, Otfrid and Notker.^[8][7] It meant “oneself” for all genders and both numbers, and durh sih meant “in itself, by itself, independently”.^[8][11] The Hildebrandslied and the Muspilli already use it.^[11]

Semantic evolution

In Middle High German sich began to be used as a dative as well,^[8] at first only in the northern part of Central German.^[1] The older use of the personal pronoun lasted long: Luther generally wrote ihm, ihr and ihnen as reflexive datives (Gott schuf den Menschen ihm zum Bilde “God created man in his own image”), and the sich of later Bible editions is not his.^[9] A rare dative sir, formed after mir and dir, appeared in Early New High German, but the plural sich beside the merged forms uns and euch stood in its way.^[1] The old genitive sein was replaced by seiner.^[9]

With many verbs the reflexive pronoun lost its role as an object, and verb and pronoun together came to express a process affecting the subject: sich legen “to lie down”, sich setzen “to sit down”.^[9] Some verbs are used only reflexively, such as sich schämen “to be ashamed”.^[9][12] Phrases with prepositions developed their own meanings: an sich “in itself”, für sich “on one's own”, vor sich gehen “to take place”.^[9][12] The philosophical phrase Ding an sich “thing in itself” passed into Hebrew.^[13]

Timeline

• c. 765 – Old High German sih is recorded in glosses.^[7]
• 1060–1065 – Middle High German sich appears in Williram's commentary on the Song of Songs.^[14]
• 1220–1240 – zich is first recorded in Dutch, borrowed from German.^[13]
• 16th century – Luther still uses ihm, ihr and ihnen where modern German has the dative sich.^[9]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. The reflexive pronoun of the third person singular and plural, in the accusative and dative: himself, herself, itself, oneself, themselves.^[12][1]
2. As a fixed part of reflexive verbs: sich freuen “to be glad”, sich schämen “to be ashamed”.^[12]
3. With lassen, expressing what can be done: es lässt sich leicht öffnen “it can easily be opened”.^[12]
4. As a reciprocal pronoun: each other, one another.^[1][15]
5. After prepositions: an sich “in itself, as such”, für sich “separately”, von sich aus “of one's own accord”, nicht ganz bei sich sein “not to be quite conscious or alert”.^[12]

Related words

• mich
• dich
• sein
• Sippe
• Sitte

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 847
3. ^ a b c d e f Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
4. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
5. ^ Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
6. ^ Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
8. ^ a b c d e Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 7, 1198
9. ^ a b c d e f g Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
10. ^ a b Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 16, 709
11. ^ a b Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 280
12. ^ a b c d e f Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
13. ^ a b Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
14. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
15. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org