se

Forms

unstressed accusative of the reflexive pronoun^[2] It is the unstressed accusative; the stressed accusative is sine, the dative sie, sieși (old șie) and the unstressed dative își, -și.^[2] In Wallachian speech the pronoun is often să.^[3][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sē (“himself, herself, themselves”), which every Romance language kept.^{[3][2][4][5][1]} The pronoun survives as Aromanian se.^[3][6] Its Romance cognates include Italian si, French se, Occitan se, Catalan se, Spanish se and Portuguese se.^[5][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2's first record is the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, and Tiktin's first date is Neacșu's letter of 1521.^[2][8]

Semantic evolution

The pronoun shows that the doer of an action is also the one it affects (se apără “defends himself”).^[4][8] The same construction is passive (se apără “is defended”) and reciprocal (se bat “they fight each other”).^[8][2] Like Spanish se, it also serves as an indefinite subject, “one, people”: se spune “it is said”, French on dit.^[3][7] Meyer-Lübke notes that in Romanian, as in Dalmatian and some Italian, Rhaeto-Romance and southern French dialects, the pronoun also serves for the first and second persons.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[2]
• 1521 – in Neacșu's letter.^[8]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. oneself, himself, herself, themselves: shows that the subject also undergoes the action: Se spală pe mâini. “He washes his hands.”^[4][2]
2. Forms reflexive verbs that express a change in the subject: s-a îmbolnăvit “he fell ill”.^[4]
3. Each other, one another: Se ceartă mereu. “They are always quarrelling.”^[4][2]
4. Forms reflexive verbs that stress the subject's own involvement: s-a luptat “he fought”.^[4]
5. Forms the passive and impersonal constructions: Aici se vorbește românește. “Romanian is spoken here.”^[4][1]

Related words

• sine
• Aromanian se

Usage notes

A separate word se is an old and regional form of the conjunction să;^[2][9] Klein's dictionary of 1801 has it in the sense “if”, which Gáldi calls an archaism of the 16th and 17th centuries.^[2][9]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 836
3. ^ a b c d Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001), p. s.v. se
4. ^ a b c d e f g DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 997
5. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7761
6. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 936
7. ^ a b Cihac, A. de (1870), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane I: Éléments latins comparés avec les autres langues romanes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 250
8. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. se
9. ^ a b Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 240