се (повратни глаголи)

1. Lexical Meaning and Function
Verbs with obligatory се that cannot function without се with the same root meaning are known as reflexiva tantum (искључиво повратни глаголи). They primarily describe:

• Emotional states: бојати се (to fear), стидети се (to feel ashamed), надати се (to hope)
• Involuntary physiological or mental processes: смејати се (to laugh), сећати се (to remember)
• Happenings and abstract activities: догодити се / десити се (to happen), трудити се (to make an effort)

In all these verbs, се carries no reflexive object meaning (nobody is acting upon themselves). They cannot drop се in these meanings (*смејати does not exist, and бојати without се is an entirely unrelated verb meaning 'to dye / color', not 'to fear'). These pure reflexiva tantum differ from lexicalized reflexive pairs where a non-reflexive base exists but adopting се alters the lexical meaning or valency (e.g., transitive решити задатак 'to solve a task' vs. intransitive решити се 'to make up one's mind / part with something').

2. Case Government (Падежна рекција)
Because verbs with obligatory се cannot take an ordinary direct object in the bare accusative case, they govern oblique cases or prepositional phrases, most notably:

• Bare genitive complements: бојати се мрака (to fear the dark), сећати се лета (to remember summer), стидети се грешке (to be ashamed of a mistake).
• Dative complements (expressing the stimulus or object of emotion): дивити се слици (to admire the painting), ругати се одлуци (to mock the decision), смешкати се некоме (to smile at someone).
• Bare instrumental complements: бавити се спортом (to do sports), поносити се успехом (to be proud of success).
• Prepositional phrases: уздати се у помоћ (to rely on help), заљубити се у некога (to fall in love with someone).

3. Clitic Rules and Word Order
Although се belongs lexically to the verb, it is written as a separate word and behaves as an unstressed enclitic governed by clitic placement rules. It sits in the second syntactic slot rather than being glued mechanically to the verb stem:

• Он се често гласно смеје. (Subject + clitic + adverb + verb)
• Смеје се цело вече. (Verb + clitic)

4. Auxiliary Drop in the Past Tense
When forming the past tense with reflexive structures in contemporary standard Serbian, the 3rd person singular auxiliary clitic је is normally omitted (see reflexive past tense):

• Он се насмејао. (Contemporary standard — without auxiliary је)
• Ана се сетила свега. (Standard phrasing — auxiliary omitted)

Retaining је (e.g., Он се је насмејао) sounds archaic or dialectal in modern standard speech, though it can still appear in specific interrogative contexts or under strong emphatic contrast.