The nominative form itse of the reflexive pronoun has boundary gemination, e.g. itse kukin is pronounced itsek kukin, but this is not reflected in other forms: they have an unvarying short e, e.g. itsen, itseä etc. The word has no plural forms; singular forms are used instead, e.g. meille itsellemme (to/for us ourselves).
The pronoun itse has two types of uses, reflexive and emphasizing; the latter use is described in subsection Use of itse for emphasis . As a reflexive pronoun itse always has a possessive suffix: itseni, itsesi, itsensä, itsemme, itsenne correspond to English “myself”, “yourself”, etc. Thus, “I washed myself” is pesin itseni, whereas “I was washing myself” is pesin itseäni (with a “partial” object in the partitive, with suffix ä).
The reflexive pronoun refers to the subject of the clause. For example, when it appears as an object, it indicates that the subject of the action is also its object. When used in the allative case (-lle case), it typically indicates that the action was performed for the benefit of the subject. This is similar to the use of “myself”, “yourself” etc. in English, but in Finnish, the reflexive pronoun is used in various case forms according to sentence structure. For example, “I bought myself a house” is Ostin itselleni talon.
Within a clause equivalent, the reflexive pronoun refers to the agent of such a structure. Thus, Äiti käski pojan ostaa itselleen asunnon means “The mother told the son to buy himself an apartment”, whereas a reference to a noun farther apart is expressed using a different pronoun: Äiti käski pojan ostaa hänelle asunnon (The mother told the son to buy her an apartment).
In some contexts, English uses a reflexive pronoun but Finnish may have a reflexive verb, which does not take any object. For example, instead of pesin itseni we can also say peseydyin. This is the 1st person singular form of peseytyä “to wash oneself”. Such verbs are mostly used in literary style; in spoken language, pesin itseni is more common.
Some forms of itse are used in an adverb-like manner in a specialized meaning. Itsekseni, itseksesi, itsekseen etc., i.e. the translative with a possessive suffix, means “to myself; alone”. Itsestään, i.e. the elative, always with the 3rd person suffix, means “by itself, automatically”.
The pronoun itse is used without a possessive suffix in some contexts:
The pronoun itse is also used, as such without inflection, to emphasize another word or expression, without implying reflexivity of any kind. The meaning depends on sentence structure and on word order:
The phrase itse kukin means “each one”. The pronoun kukin alone would mean the same thing, but itse emphasizes this. Other phraseological use includes itse asiassa (as a matter of fact).
As reciprocal pronouns, forms of the word toinen are used. This word means “second” but also “other”. To express “each other” or “one another”, this word is repeated and the second occurrence has a possessive suffix, e.g. He tukivat toinen toistaan (They supported each other) or He antoivat lahjoja toinen toiselleen (They gave presents to each other). As the example shows, both occurrences are in singular here, even though the meaning is plural.
Alternatively, the plural of toinen with a possessive suffix can be used alone: He tukivat toisiaan and He antoivat lahjoja toisilleen. The meaning is the same, but the longer toinen toistaan emphasizes the mutuality.
Hybrids of these expressions, like toinen toisiaan, are common. They were previously regarded as substandard, but they are now accepted.