threats: forwarded from Arnold Zwicky

[David Gil]

Arnold Zwicky asked me to forward the following message to the list ...

David

**********

From: Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu>
Date: January 11, 2010 6:35:37 AM PST
To: Linguistic Typology <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: threat

On Jan 11, 2010, at 5:32 AM, Paul Hopper wrote:

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

i don't know about the Dutch and German versions, but the English 
version doesn't necessarily have this special intonation. there's 
discussion here:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005297.html
(with links to earlier discussions).

> 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.

"I'll give you VP" (conveying roughly 'don't VP, stop VPing') is new to 
me, but i'm familiar with "I'll give you EXPRESSION" (e.g., "I'll give 
you 'Shut up!'"),. conveying roughly 'don't say EXPRESSION to me'.

arnold


On Jan 11, 2010, at 5:49 AM, David Gil wrote:

> 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/


-- 
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/