threat

[Bakker, D.]

Dear Alexander,

Dutch does not have, I think, such a direct version of a change of
semantic roles, making it a threat. 
A construction that I can think of will leave the
threatened individual in the original agent position, but will
turn it into a non-final construction as the argument of the
verb leren  to teach', in future tense, and typically with the speaker
as the agent:

(about the cat of the neighbours);

Hij loopt in mijn tuin
It walks in my garden

Ik zal hem leren in mijn tuin te lopen!
I will teach it to walk in my garden

Or the filler of the agent role of 'to teach' may
be the demonstrative dat 'that', which then refers
to the kind of punishment considered by the speaker for 
the wrongdoing:

Ik zal de tuinslang op hem zetten. Dat zal hem leren
in mijn tuin te lopen.
I will turn the hose on it. That will teach it to walk in my garden.

Best,

Dik

Dik Bakker 
Dept. of General Linguistics 
Universities of Amsterdam & Lancaster
tel (+44) 1524 64975 & (+31) 20 5253864
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/d.bakker/

Societas Linguistica Europaea 
Secretary/Treasurer
http://www.societaslinguistica.eu/

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20100111/e2c66f6b/attachment.htm>