даёшь

[Paul B. Gallagher]

John Dunn wrote:

> On the one occasion when I went to watch an ice-hockey match in the
> Soviet Union, the crowd expressed its displeasure at actions on the
> part of the referee by chanting 'Судью со льду [sic]', a chant that
> takes a non-native speaker of Russian some moments to decipher. In
> this and in other contexts where the accusative is used (e.g. when
> ordering food or drink), it is possible to interpret the sentences as
> requiring the insertion of a verb (or in some instances one of
> several possible verbs) to make them complete, as John Dingley
> suggests below. But is that how native speakers interpret them? Or
> are they perceived as set expressions in which the use of the
> accusative no longer has any particular grammatical logic?

I'll be interested to hear the natives' response on this. I've always 
imagined some minimal verb like "get" (the ref off the ice) "give" (me 
some vodka), etc. The precise verb isn't important; anything like деть 
or дать will do...

And since nouns must always have a case, what else would you use? 
Accusative seems closest to its role in the sentence (fragment)...

-- 
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

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