threat

[Paul Hopper]

Dik,

Is the Dutch threat construction accompanied by a special intonation, like
the English "_I'll_ teach him, etc."?

My mother used to say things like "I'll give you throw the paper"
(scolding the newspaper boy, who has thrown the paper onto the porch
instead of walking up the steps with it). This could be older British
English, as I haven't heard anyone say it for many years -- I don't know
if it's still current. The use of 'give' recalls the Russian dative in
Alexander's examples.

- Paul


On Mon, January 11, 2010 07:50, Bakker, D. wrote:
> 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/
>
>
>


Paul J. Hopper
Department of English
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213