Personal dative

[Beverly Flanigan]

Just a correction on name spelling (again):  It's Clare Dannenberg, not
Danneburg.  As one whose name is often respelled as Flannigan, Flanagan, or
(horrors) Falnigan, I notice these things. . . .

At 11:27 AM 7/15/01 +0800, you wrote:
I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter.
>(which involves a true argument, and hence a reflexive) on the
>other.  (It's because the PD isn't a true argument that it can show up
>without reflexive marking in the same clause as a coreferential
>antecedent.)   It's even possible to get "I'm gonna write me a letter to
>my ex-wife"  or "He's gonna buy him a pickup for his son" where the PD
>shows up alongside the actual indirect object.
>Some attested examples of the non-argument PD (several of these from an
>unpublished paper by Clare Danneburg & Gerd Webelhuth, "The Theoretical
>Importance of Southern English Personal Datives") include
>
>"I seen me a mermaid once."
>"We elected us Ike President."
>"We want us a black German police dog cause I had one once."
>"That house needs it a new roof."
>
>and my personal favorite,
>
>"What I like is goats.  I just like to look at me some goats."
>
>--Larry


_____________________________________________
Beverly Olson Flanigan         Department of Linguistics
Ohio University                     Athens, OH  45701
Ph.: (740) 593-4568              Fax: (740) 593-2967
http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm