 <p>Even though there are some basic constructs java, that are replaced by a portion of java like String concatenation where</p> <pre><code>"Colour: " + this.getColour() </code></pre> <p>means</p> <pre><code>new StringBuilder(new String(new char[] {'C', 'o'..., ' '}).intern()).append(this.getColour()); </code></pre> <p>However, I don't think this applies to any keyword. Neither super, nor this, throws, extends, and so on can be impleted by other java expressions. They build up the base of the language and are not just syntactic sugar to work efficiently with this language. Thus they build by byte codes and other basic constrcts.</p>