"I'm gonna get me a dog"

[Wolfgang Schulze]

Dear friends,

please allow me to briefly come back to the 'me'-issue. In my last
posting, I had suggested to treat the examples of a possible
'me'-construction in English as an instantiation of the
'middle-reflexive' construction as documented in quite a considerable
number of languages. What seems crucial to me is the fact that we have
to deal with a specific constructional pattern, not necessarily with a
segmental specification based on case semantics. This comes clear from
the fact that in all the examples brought forth so far, there is
coreference between the 'agent' (S(ubjective); A(gentive)) and the
'dative pronoun'. Now, if you look at standard Old Greek grammars, you
will imeediately realize that coreference (that is constructional
reflexivity) is not necessarily present with what is called the Dativus
Ethicus. The standard Old Greek example for this case semantics is:

mÉ     moi    thorubÉsete
proh   I:dat   make=noise:imp:2pl
'Don't make noise (for me).'

If ever there is coreference in this clause, it is organized according
to what typology calls logophoric reference (reference towards the
speaker). Rather parallel constructions can already be found in Old
English, e.g.(capital letters are long vowels). An interesting passage
can be found in Beda's Historia ecclesiastica (~ 670), translated by
Aelfred (~ 890): In Book IV, chapter 24, we read:

Cedoman  sin3               mE    hwaethwu3u
Caedmon  sing:imp:2sg   I:dat  something
Latin: Demon (...) canta mihi aliquid.' (8)
'Caedman, sing me something.'

hwaerthe thU      mE    meaht            sin3an
still          you:sg  I:dat  can:pres:2sg   sing
Latin: Attamen (...) cantare habes.'
'You can still sing me.' ((ibid. (10)).

sin3  mE    frumsceaft (12)
sing  I:dat  creation
Latin: Canta (...) principium creaturarum.'
'Sing me (about) the creation'

It is interesting to see that at least in (10) and (12), the Dativus
Ethicus turns up only in the translation, which argues in favor of am
autochthonous construction (logophoric reference = Dativus Ethicus).
This also comes true from Old Norse / Old Icelandic, confer:

gakk           mér   firr (Heusler 1967:189)
go:imp:2sg  I:dat   far
'Go far (for me)' [not: from me!]

All these are examples for a (horribile dictu) Dativus Ethicus. Still,
these examples are NOT what seems to be meant with the examples at
issue, namely the 'me'-construction. As I said above: In my eyes, the
crucial difference is that the dativus ethicus does not necessarily
involve a clause-internal reflexive strategy, whereas the
'me'-construction does. Unfortunately, I do not have at hands an Old
English or Old Norse corpus to test, whether 'me'-constructions had been
present already in older variants of Germanic. Still, in a passage from
Hávamál (Older Edda, verse 47) I have read:

audhigr thótto-mz
rich      appear:past:1sg-refl:1
'I appeared for me to be rich'

a form, that competed with audhigr thótto 'I appeared to be rich'. Here,
we would have something like the 'me'-construction at issue.

All this (and, admittedly, much more) argues - in my humble eyes -
against the use of the term 'Dativus Ethicus' for the 'me'-construction.
This would make perhaps too strong use of the traditional Latin/Greek
based terminology that often obscures important typological differences...

Best
Wolfgang

Stahlke, Herbert F.W. schrieb:

>I'm interested that you use the term "ethical dative" for this.  It's a term I also used when I suggested this analysis on the other list that Johanna and I discussed this on.  I learned the term from Greek and Latin studies, but it doesn't show up in English studies much.  There is one footnote on it in the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language.
>
>Herb Stahlke
>
>============
>
>I'm not a native speaker of English, so maybe I should be reluctant, but I
>do know that I own an album by a contemporary American songwriter on which
>the following line can be heard:
>
>"I went outside and I smoked myself a J "
>
>What is more, I also have an album by some other American songwriter  that
>has a song with the line:
>
>"I had me a girl in Minnesota/ She was only fillin'  her  quota"
>
>Both albums sold over three million copies, and I am not aware that any
>buyer has ever complained about bad English. So one thing I think should be
>clear: these what i would call "ethical  datives" are a real phenomenon of
>at least American English.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

--
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze
Institut für Allgemeine und Typologische Sprachwissenschaft
Department 'Kommunikation und Sprachen' (Dep. II) - F 13/14
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1
D-80539 München
Tel.: ++49(0)89-2180-2486 (Sekr.) / -5343 (Büro)
Fax: ++49(0)89-2180-5345
Email: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Web: http://www.ats.uni-muenchen.de/wschulze