Expression of threat

[Siva Kalyan]

In (American) English, one could say, "I'll teach him to walk in my garden!"
(or, in less standard English, "I'll learn him!"). I wonder if the Russian
construction evolved from something similar, since in both cases the
addressee of the threat is expressed as an indirect object and the
threatener as the subject.
Siva

2010/1/11 Alexander Letuchiy <alexander_letuchiy at hotmail.com>

>  Dear colleagues,
>
> First of all, I wish everyone Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! And then,
> one question.
>
> In Russian, my native language, we have a curious construction denoting
> threat: in this construction the Subject of the verb, which is
> simultaneously the addressee of the threat is moved to the Indirect Object
> position and marked with dative, whereas the Subject position is occupied by
> the subject of the threat (person who threatens).
> It looks like (1), where you can see the basic construction without the
> meaning of the threat in (1a) and the construction of threat in (1b):
>
> (1) a.    *Ivan          gulja-et           po           nash-emu
> sad-u.*
> *           *Ivan(NOM)  walk-3SG.PRS   along       our-DAT.SG.M
> garden(M)-DAT.SG
>            Ivan walks in our garden (usual (basic) construction).
>
>      b.    *Ja            emu           po-gulja-ju.*
> *           *I.NOM       he.DAT        PF-walk-1SG.PRS
>            I will make him something bad, because he walks (there) (lit. 'I
> will walk to him') (construction of threat, where 'I' is the subject of the
> threat in the Subject position, and 'him' is the addressee in the Indirect
> Object position).
>
> I would like to ask you whether you are aware of any similar examples in
> your native or non-native languages, namely of examples where the meaning of
> threat is marked with an argument change. But in addition, I would be
> interested in any examples showing how threat is expressed in different
> languages (lexical markers, TAM forms, and so on).
>
> Thanks a lot!
>
> Yours sincerely,
>
> Alexander Letuchiy, Moscow
>
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