threat

[David Gil]

Are the examples that have been considered really threats?  To me it 
seems as though "I'll teach you to do that" is a kind of idiom whose 
core meaning is to express the speaker's disapproval at the 
interlocutor's engaging in some activity.  Specifically, I would suggest 
that in the case of the English expression, at least, we're dealing with 
the following three levels of meaning:

(a) a literal meaning involving teaching
(b) an implicature that this will involve some kind of harsh reprisal 
aimed at the hearer
(c) a further implicature that the hearer should not have engaged in the 
activity in question

Whereas (b) is this level of meaning that gives rise to the 
characterization of the construction as involving a threat, to me it 
seems that level (c) is, ultimately, the main gist of the expression -- 
and this does not really involve a threat.

-- 
David Gil

Department of Linguistics
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany

Telephone: 49-341-3550321 Fax: 49-341-3550119
Email: gil at eva.mpg.de
Webpage:  http://www.eva.mpg.de/~gil/