This article discusses personal reflexive verbs (hereinafter referred to as the PRVs) in English, German, Russian and Ukrainian. The PRVs are regarded as derived units and analyzed in the opposition to their compound stems, non-reflexive verbs (hereinafter – the NRVs). Both NRVs and PRVs are researched within the constructions they form. The PRVs are described in terms of the theory of diathesis at two levels, semantic and referential. The article establishes a type of diathesis peculiar to this notional class of verbs and types of reference at both semantic and referential levels.