Expression of threat

[Anna Martowicz]

Very interesting topic indeed!

In Polish we use exactly the same construction:

a.

*Ivan          chodz-i           po           nasz-ym       ogrodzi-e.*
*Ivan(NOM)     walk-3SG.PRS      along        our-LOC.SG.M  garden(M)-LOC.SG

Ivan walks in our garden

b.
*Ja            mu             po-chodz-e!*
*I.NOM         he.DAT         PF-walk-1SG.PRS

Best wishes,
Anna


Quoting Siva Kalyan <sivakalyan.princeton at GMAIL.COM>:

> In (American) English, one could say, "I'll teach him to walk in my garden!"
> (or, in less standard English, "I'll learn him!"). I wonder if the Russian
> construction evolved from something similar, since in both cases the
> addressee of the threat is expressed as an indirect object and the
> threatener as the subject.
> Siva
>
> 2010/1/11 Alexander Letuchiy <alexander_letuchiy at hotmail.com>
>
>>  Dear colleagues,
>>
>> First of all, I wish everyone Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! And then,
>> one question.
>>
>> In Russian, my native language, we have a curious construction denoting
>> threat: in this construction the Subject of the verb, which is
>> simultaneously the addressee of the threat is moved to the Indirect Object
>> position and marked with dative, whereas the Subject position is occupied by
>> the subject of the threat (person who threatens).
>> It looks like (1), where you can see the basic construction without the
>> meaning of the threat in (1a) and the construction of threat in (1b):
>>
>> (1) a.    *Ivan          gulja-et           po           nash-emu
>> sad-u.*
>> *           *Ivan(NOM)  walk-3SG.PRS   along       our-DAT.SG.M
>> garden(M)-DAT.SG
>>            Ivan walks in our garden (usual (basic) construction).
>>
>>      b.    *Ja            emu           po-gulja-ju.*
>> *           *I.NOM       he.DAT        PF-walk-1SG.PRS
>>            I will make him something bad, because he walks (there) (lit. 'I
>> will walk to him') (construction of threat, where 'I' is the subject of the
>> threat in the Subject position, and 'him' is the addressee in the Indirect
>> Object position).
>>
>> I would like to ask you whether you are aware of any similar examples in
>> your native or non-native languages, namely of examples where the meaning of
>> threat is marked with an argument change. But in addition, I would be
>> interested in any examples showing how threat is expressed in different
>> languages (lexical markers, TAM forms, and so on).
>>
>> Thanks a lot!
>>
>> Yours sincerely,
>>
>> Alexander Letuchiy, Moscow
>>
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>>
>



-- 
Anna Martowicz

PhD student at
Theoretical & Applied Linguistics/
Language Evolution & Computation Research Unit
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