The use of 'the' in place of possessive adjectives

The is never used with possessive adjectives and pronouns:

This is my car This car is mine, (no the) [> 3.4] However, sometimes the is used where we might expect a possessive adjective, e.g. with parts of the body after prepositions:

He punched me in the face A bee stung her on the nose This use can be extended to hair and clothes (i.e. things which are 'attached' to the body):

Miss Pnngle pulled Clannda by the hair/by the sleeve Possessive adjectives (not *the*) must be used in most other cases:

She shook her head/cleaned her teeth I've hurt my finger In informal contexts, the can be used instead of (usually)my/your/our children, family, kids, as in:

How's the family? Where are the children? But e.g. Meet the wife is familiar but not universally acceptable.

Reflexive pronouns

Form of reflexive pronouns

singular: myself yourself himself, herself, itself, oneself
plural: ourselves yourselves themselves

Reflexive pronouns are really compounds formed from possessive adjectives + -self; e.g. myself yourse"; or from object pronouns + -self: e.g. himself.

Obligatory use of reflexive pronouns after certain verbs

There are only a very few verbs in English which must always be followed by a reflexive pronoun: e.g.absent avail, pride-The soldier absented himself without leave for three weeks Other verbs are very commonly followed by reflexives: e.g.amuse blame, cut, dry, enjoy, hurt, introduce I cut myself shaving this morning We really enjoyed ourselves at the funfair Of course, these verbs can be followed by ordinary objects:

/ ve cut my lip We enjoyed the funfair The important thing to remember is that verbs of this kind are never followed by object pronouns (me, him, her, etc.) when the subject and object refer to the same person:

I've cut myself (Not 'me") Note that these verbs are all transitive [> 1.9]. This means they must have an object and this is commonly a reflexive pronoun. The one exception is the intransitive verb behave, which can be followed (but need not be) by a reflexive pronoun: Please behave (yourself)¹ The children behaved (themselves)

Reflexive pronouns