Most of the words we use refer to things in the real world
Like "martian" - martians tend to refer to things from Mars.
Other words, however, don’t have such a clear meaning, like "herself."
"Herself" certainly has to refer to something that’s a person and maybe female,
but other than that, we’re not so sure.
We know what it CAN refer to, but not what it DOES.
Let’s give an example to illustrate.
"The martian saw herself in the mirror."
In this case, "herself" refers to the martian.
"Herself" and "the martian" basically refer to the same individual.
Let’s show another example to see how "herself" takes its meaning from the words around it.
If we replace "the martian" with "Ingrid," now "herself" means "Ingrid."
This is what we mean when we say that "herself" takes its meaning from the words around it.
Let’s try another example, this time replacing "Ingrid" with another noun that is more complex:
"The martian’s mother saw herself in the mirror."
Now we have two possible antecedents: the martian, and the mother.
In this case, it has to be the mother who’s doing the seeing, not the martian.
Let’s lay out a set of hypotheses about what "herself" can possibly refer to.
1. We think that it has to be the closest possible noun to "herself"
2. And it has to be the right kind of noun
But that’s kind of vague.
What do we mean by the "right kind" of noun?
Well, let’s replace all of this with some other noun, for instance:
"The book saw herself in the mirror."
That kind of doesn’t work, because "the book" isn’t a person.
It would only work if the book were anthropomorphized.
So let’s put a person back in the sentence:
"The book saw herself in Ingrid."
Well, we have a person, but this sentence doesn’t work either.
Maybe "Ingrid" actually has to go before "herself."
Let’s swap these:
"Ingrid saw herself in the book."
Now the sentence works reasonably well - in a figurative sort of way - "Ingrid" is the
antecedent of "herself."
So, we should revise our hypotheses to reflect that the referent of "herself" must be the
closest preceding female person.
Let’s try another example with multiple possible antecedents:
"Ingrid said the martian’s mother laughed at herself."
In this case, we have several possible antecedents: "Ingrid," "the martian," and "the mother."
And this is where our closest preceding antecedent comes in. "herself" has to refer to "mother".
Let’s apply our new constraints to another sentence:
"The mother of the martian saw herself."
We have two possible antecedents: the mother and the martian.
But by our rule, the martian would be the one that’s doing the seeing, and that’s
just not the case.
Here, the mother is actually doing the seeing.
This suggests that we might have to revise our rules a bit.
Let’s take a simpler sentence to see how this works:
"The mother saw herself."
This means that the mother is, crucially, the person that is doing the seeing.
When we re-insert "of the martian," we see that "of the martian" is somehow modifying
"the mother."
It’s not changing the most critical part of the meaning of the sentence.
And so when "herself" searches for an antecedent, it skips over the content in parentheses and
just looks at "the mother."
So our new hypothesis has to reflect that any potential antecedent not be within a modifier.
Let’s look at one more sentence to see this in action:
"*The rocket that carried the martian launched herself."
"that carried the martian" seems to be modifying "the rocket," just like the other modifier
was doing in the previous sentence.
So when "herself" has to find an antecedent, it skips right over "the martian" and goes
straight to "the rocket."
This sentence happens to be ungrammatical because "the rocket" does not meet our constraints
in that it is not a person.
(Sometimes linguists can learn as much from ungrammatical sentences as grammatical ones.)
"Herself" is just one of many words that take their meaning from the words around them.
It’s called an anaphor. Specifically, a reflexive anaphor.
Other reflexives that exist in English include these words.
Reflexives exist in other languages, as well, like these words.
But, in fact, there are other types of anaphora that are not reflexive.
These include his and its and their and her and him.
These take their meaning from the words in the surrounding context, as well, but use
different antecedents.
Bonus:
Try to figure out the antecedents of the anaphora in this sentence:
Morris thought that Felix misplaced his book after the martian distracted him.
In particular, pay attention to "his" and to "him". And which of these could be the
possible antecedents.