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Re: Ethical dative (was: Question about transitivity etc.)

From:John Cowan <cowan@...>
Date:Monday, June 2, 2003, 12:24
Henrik Theiling scripsit:

> This 'mir' stresses the imperative somehow. I don't know how, but > it's almost always used in sentences like that said by parents. :-)
Quite. It shows that the referent (viz. the speaker) is concerned in the matter.
> But I think it's not feasible when there is a dative supplement: > > *Gib mir dem Mann das bloß nicht! > give me.DAT the-man.DAT that.ACC EMPH not. > Don't you dare to give that to the man!
Okay, here's a difference between German and Latin, which tolerated two datives fine, as in my first example. -- Eric Raymond is the Margaret Mead John Cowan of the Open Source movement. jcowan@reutershealth.com --Lloyd A. Conway, http://www.ccil.org/~cowan amazon.com review http://www.reutershealth.com