Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 12:09:48 GMT

From: "Warren A. Brewer" NCUT054[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]TWNMOE10.BITNET

Subject: Pleonastic pronouns (?)



Rex Pyles mentions Dative in reference to constructions like, I'm

gonna read me a good book.



Name that tune: I'm gonna cry me a river over you.



Curious how this seems to parallel Latin phenomena. Latin grammarians

use terms like dativus (in)commodi ("dative of (dis)advantage"),

dativus ethicus ("ethical dative"), dativus symaptheticus.

These dative uses were frequently colloquial, and "pleonastic" in the

sense that the literary language found them superfluous. These

datives expressed something more personal, even "warmer" according to

Hofmann-Szantyr.



For English there's probably even a usage hierarchy for some examples:

(1) I'm gonna cry me a river over you. (bare objective pronoun)

(2) I'm gonna cry myself a river over you. (-self form)

(3) I am going to cry a river over you. (expurgated, ala Stan

Freeberg)



---Wab.