... she was cutting _me_ some cake."

[Joel S. Berson]

At 5/6/2011 09:30 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>Are you sure the colleague isn't thinking of the
>personal dative versions?  That would be, say,
>"My mother was cutting her some cake", with
>coreference, and crucially involving the
>pronominal "her" rather than "herself" here.
>That one is regionally/socially restricted.  I've
>never encountered speakers who balked at "She was
>cutting me some cake" with an ordinary
>ditransitive indirect object, but then I may have
>not noticed the balking.

While I wouldn't say "cut me/her some cake" (I would say "cut some
cake for me/her"), I wouldn't balk at (but would notice) hearing
it.  And here in the Northeast I would easily say and not notice
hearing "cut me/her some *slack*",

Joel

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