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Re: Ethical Dative, was Re: Polysynthetic Languages

From:David Barrow <davidab@...>
Date:Monday, September 29, 2003, 5:17
Tristan McLeay wrote:

>On Sun, 28 Sep 2003, David Barrow wrote: > > > >>Fowler's Modern English Usage says it means emotional or expressive and >>is a way a speaker introduces himself into an action of which he has no >>more than indirect interest. Fowler equates it to a parenthetical 'I >>wonder' and was once present in English: >> >>"He that kills me some six or seven dozens of Scots before breakfast" >> >>To me above dative and the one in the Spanish "El nene no me come la >>comida" is more than parenthical. It conveys the idea of 'you do it for >>me as a favour even if you are not keen on doing it for your own sake' >> >> > >Umm... I think I'm confused. Can you provide an example with 'I wonder' >that's equivalent to the ethical dative? How does the above sentence >differ from 'Someone who kills six or seven dozen Scots before breakfast >for me'? >
I was stating what Fowler's says and it doesn't provide one. Fowler's says the me in the above amounts to a parenthetic 'just fancy'. David Barrow