# Dative case in place of the possessive in Germanic languages



## Nino83

Hello everyone.
In Romance languages, when the object is a part of the body, something we're wearing or something we own is stolen or broken we use the dative case of the owner. 

*Mi* fa male il piede. *Me* duele el pie. *Me* dói/dói-*me* o pé. *Mon* pied *me* fait mal. *My* foot hurts.
*Mi* hanno rubato il portafogli. *Me* robaron la cartera. *Me* roubaram/roubaram-*me* a carteira. Ils *m*'ont volé *mon* portefeuille. They stolen *my* wallet.

As you can see, Romance languages use the indirect object pronoun in order to indicate the owner, French uses both the indirect object and the possessive adjective while English uses only the possessive adjective.

How do you say these sentences in your language (German, Dutch, Norwegian/Danish, Swedish, Icelandic)?

How is it in German?
Das Füß *mir* tut weh.
Sie haben *mir* die Brieftasche gestohlen.

Thank you


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## Ben Jamin

Dative possessive construction exists in Norwegian, even if there is no dative case left any longer (only in a couple fossilized phrases). The dative construction uses the preposition "til" (to).
It has now replaced in a high grade the genitive construction with "s" at the end of a noun. People do not sa any longer "Min mann*s* bil" (My husband's car), but "Bilen til mannen min" (The car to my husband). Another construction that is much used makes use of the preposition "på" (on), like in "Hodet på mannen" (The head on the man).
By the way, the dative possessive construction is much used in the Slavic languages, for example Polish "Mnie jest zimno" (To me it is cold).


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## Nino83

Thanks, Ben Jamin.
And how do you translate these two sentences ("my foot hurts" and "they stolen my wallet") in Norwegian (and, for curiosity, in Polish)? 
Using the possessive adjective or the dative pronoun?


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## myšlenka

Ben Jamin said:


> Dative possessive construction exists in Norwegian, even if there is no dative case left any longer (only in a couple fossilized phrases). The dative construction uses the preposition "til" (to).


What's the rationale behind labelling this use of Norw. _til _"dative construction"?


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> Das Füß *mir* tut weh.


_Der Fuß tut mir weh._

It is a simple _free dative_, a _dativus incommodi_, as in Latin _Mihi pedem laedit._


Nino83 said:


> Sie haben *mir* die Brieftasche gestohlen.




This is semantically not the same as _They stole my wallet_. It means I am the person a certain wallet is stolen from. Semantically, it does not imply it was my own wallet, although it pragmatically usually is. It is a _dativus incommodi _as well.


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## Nino83

berndf said:


> Semantically, it does not imply it was my own wallet, although it pragmatically usually is. It is a _dativus incommodi _as well.


Thank you Bernd. Also in Italian you can say "mi hanno rubato il tuo libro" and it means that I had the possession of your book and someone stole it, i.e I was stolen but the book is yours.
Is it possible in German to say "Sie haben mir deine Brieftasche gestohlen"?  
Is it due to Latin influence or also in Old High German this type of construction existed? If it is not a borrowing, why English lost this construction? Is it present in the other Germanic languages?

For example, how they say in Swedish?
De stal mig plånboken.
De stal min plånbok.
De stal mig din plånbok.


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> Is it possible in German to say "Sie haben mir deine Brieftasche gestohlen"?


Yes. Suppose a friend asks you to guard his wallet and you want to explain him why you don't have it any more. Then this would be a valid and idiomatic way to say it.


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## Nino83

Thank you. 
Let's wait for some Norwegian, Swedish, Dutch speaker to tell us if these constructions are possible in his/her language.


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## merquiades

Nino83 said:


> Ils *m*'ont volé *mon* portefeuille.


  You don't need to double it.  On m'a volé le portefeuille.  On a volé mon portefeuille.  The former is more colloquial, the latter more standard.
J'ai mal au pied.


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## Nino83

merquiades said:


> You don't need to double it.  On m'a volé le portefeuille.  On a volé mon portefeuille.  The former is more colloquial, the latter more standard. J'ai mal au pied.



Thank you

It seems that in English we can translate the _dativus commodi/incommodi_ using the preposition "for" (_dativus commodi_) or "from, on" (_dativus incommodi_) and sometimes using indirect pronouns.
_*Le* ho trovato qualcosa_ > _I found *her* something_ (dativus commodi)
_*Le* ho trovato qualcosa_ > _I found something *for her*_ (dativus commodi)
_*Le* hanno rubato il mio libro_ >_ They stole my book *from her*_ (dativus incommodi)
_*Mi* si è rotta la macchina_ > _My car broke down *on me*_ (dativus incommodi)
_*Mi* fa male il piede_ > _My foot hurts *me*_ (dativus incommodi)

How can be translated these sentences in German, Dutch, Nordic Germanic languages?


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## fdb

berndf said:


> _Mihi pedem laedit._



You can say calceus mihi pedem laedit (thus Plautus), “the shoe (nom.) hurts my (dat.) foot (acc.)”. This sentence does not work without calceus.


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## berndf

fdb said:


> You can say calceus mihi pedem laedit (thus Plautus), “the shoe (nom.) hurts my (dat.) foot (acc.)”. This sentence does not work without calceus.


_Mihi pedem laedit = [It (e.g the shoe)] hurts me [the] foot._

You are right that is not a translation of _Der Fuß tut mir weh. _But I insist that it is a_ dativus commodi. _And this is what I wanted to express.


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## fdb

berndf said:


> _Mihi pedem laedit = [It (e.g the shoe)] hurts me [the] foot._



Of course.


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## Ben Jamin

myšlenka said:


> What's the rationale behind labelling this use of Norw. _til _"dative construction"?


It has the same function.


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## myšlenka

Ben Jamin said:


> It has the same function.


The same function as the gentitive perhaps?


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## Nino83

fdb said:


> You can say calceus mihi pedem laedit (thus Plautus), “the shoe (nom.) hurts my (dat.) foot (acc.)”. This sentence does not work without calceus.



Wasn't possible in Latin to say "pes mihi dolet" or "pedes mihi dolent"?


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## Ben Jamin

myšlenka said:


> The same function as the gentitive perhaps?


Nowadays it has both the genitive and dative, but the genitive function is secondary. Maybe it would be more precise to say "originally a dative construction adopted to mark possession instead of the genitive".


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## Riverplatense

Nino83 said:


> How can be translated these sentences in German, Dutch, Nordic Germanic languages?



German:

_*Le* ho trovato qualcosa_ > _I found *her* something_ > _Ich habe *ihr *etwas gefunden_ (dativus commodi)
_*Le* ho trovato qualcosa_ > _I found something *for her*_ > _Ich habe *für sie* etwas gefunden_ (more common) (dativus commodi)
_*Le* hanno rubato il mio libro_ >_ They stole my book *from her*_ > _Sie haben *ihr *mein Buch gestohlen_ (*_Sie haben mein Buch von ihr gestohlen_) (dativus incommodi)
_*Mi* si è rotta la macchina_ > _My car broke down *on me*_ > _*Mir *ist das Auto kaputtgegangen_ (dativus incommodi)
_*Mi* fa male il piede_ > _My foot hurts *me*_ > _*Mir *tut der Fuß weh_ (dativus incommodi)

Isn't there also a connection between these constructions and dativus ethicus (medialis) and dativus possessivus, if you think about sentences like _mi sono lavati i capelli_/_Ich habe mir die Haare gewaschen_?


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## Nino83

Riverplatense said:


> Isn't there also a connection between these constructions and dativus ethicus (medialis) and dativus possessivus, if you think about sentences like _mi sono lavat*o* i capelli_/_Ich habe mir die Haare gewaschen_?


Yes, Riverplatense.
It seems that only German, among Germanic languages, retained this structure.
Do you know if this use of the dative case was a common feature in proto IE or among Old Germanic languages?


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## Riverplatense

Nino83 said:


> Do you know if this use of the dative case was a common feature in proto IE or among Old Germanic languages?



Unfortunately I don't. I guess, however, that constructions like these were built by synthetic, mediopassive forms, and I don't know neither, whether or not these forms could be combined with a direct object. Modern Greek does not (_πλένω _›I wash‹, mediopassive _πλένομαι _›I wash myself‹, _πλένω τα χέρια μου_ ›I wash my hands‹ etc.), but it can be implicit (_λούζομαι _›I wash my hair‹, cf. _λούζω_ ›I bath [something]‹).


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## Nino83

Thank you Riverplatense. 
It seems that if I want to know how these sentences are translated in other modern Germanic languages I've to ask in these language forums.


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## Riverplatense

You're welcome!



Riverplatense said:


> I guess, however, that constructions like these were built by synthetic, mediopassive forms



This was a rather rash post. Indeed, the mediopassive voice is pretty far away from a dative construction.


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## berndf

Riverplatense said:


> Unfortunately I don't. I guess, however, that constructions like these were built by synthetic, mediopassive forms, and I don't know neither, whether or not these forms could be combined with a direct object. Modern Greek does not (_πλένω _›I wash‹, mediopassive _πλένομαι _›I wash myself‹, _πλένω τα χέρια μου_ ›I wash my hands‹ etc.), but it can be implicit (_λούζομαι _›I wash my hair‹, cf. _λούζω_ ›I bath [something]‹).


It seems you are contemplating about the dative reflexive as in _Ich wasche mir die Füße_.

Please bear in mind that the dative pronouns in the OP
_Der Fuß tut *mir* weh.
Sie haben *mir* die Brieftasche gestohlen._​are not reflexive.


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## Riverplatense

berndf said:


> ase bear in mind that the dative pronouns in the OP [...] are not reflexive.



But is _Ich wasche mir die Füße_ reflexive? I'd rather call it a dativus ethicus/dativus medialis. I'd say a reflexive construction's object is the same as the subject, but here the subject is _ich_, the object is _die Füße_.


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## Nino83

berndf said:


> It seems you are contemplating about the dative reflexive as in _Ich wasche mir die Füße_.


I think Riverplatense is right in this case.
In _Ich wasche mich (selbst)_ there is a reflexive pronoun while in _Ich wasche mir die Füße_ there is a dative that indicates possession, a part of the body, like in _Der Fuß tut mir weh_.
Also in Italian, _mi lavo_ (I wash me, myself, accusative) vs. _mi lavo le mani_ (I wash hands to me, dative).
In this thread some forum members speak about the sentence "I wash *my* hands".
It seems that Romance languages, German and Slavic languages use the dative case, while in English (and Hungarian) they use the possessive adjective.


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## berndf

Riverplatense said:


> But is _Ich wasche mir die Füße_ reflexive?


Yes. _Er wäscht *sich* die Füße._

In contrast to:
_Der Fuß tut *ihm* weh.
Sie haben *ihm* die Brieftasche gestohlen._


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## Riverplatense

berndf said:


> Yes. _Er wäscht sich die Füße._



But you can perfectly say _Er wäscht mir die Füße_, and then there's no reflexive meaning any more. 



Nino83 said:


> there is a dative that indicates possession



That's what I think too:

_Ich wasche mir die Füße ~ Ich wasche meine Füße
Ich wasche ihm die Füße ~ Ich wasche seine Füße_


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## berndf

Riverplatense said:


> But you can perfectly say _Er wäscht mir die Füße_, and then there's no reflexive meaning any more.


That is a different construction and certainly not related to the mediopassive.


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## Riverplatense

berndf said:


> certainly not related to the mediopassive



Yes, of course. The agens appears only once in the discourse.


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## berndf

Riverplatense said:


> That's what I think too:
> 
> _Ich wasche mir die Füße ~ Ich wasche meine Füße
> Ich wasche ihm die Füße ~ Ich wasche seine Füße_


Only because you can rephrase a subject with the possessive this does not make the construction itself possessive. _Meine Füße _is a single noun phrase where _meine_ attributes _Füße_,_ mir die Füße _is not. _Mir _is an adverbial that attributes the verb an not _Füße. _The noun phrase is_ die Füße._


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## Nino83

But it seems a _dative commodi_ or benefactive case (or, at least, it is very similar).


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## Riverplatense

berndf said:


> Only because you can rephrase a subject with the possessive this does not make the construction itself possessive.



But you can't subtract the possessive component, neither. _Ich wasche ihm die Füße_ implies _seine_. That's also why I mentioned Italian _mi sono lavati i capelli_, where the participle does not agree with the subject (reflexive: _mi sono lavato/lavata_), but with the object — even though a transitive, not reflexive verb would be used with the auxiliary _avere_, but: _li ho lavat*i*_.


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> But it seems a _dative commodi_ or benefactive case (or, at least, it is very similar).


Yes, the dative reflexive probably evolved from that.


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## Nino83

Riverplatense said:


> That's also why I mentioned Italian _mi sono lavati i capelli_, where the participle does not agree with the subject (reflexive: _mi sono lavato/lavata_), but with the object. You could also say _ho lavati (/lavato) i (miei) capelli_.



As a side note, in Italian the past participle agrees with the object only when there is a *direct* object pronoun before the verb:
_Ho lavato le mani_ (DO)_. _
*Mi* (reflexive)_ sono lavat*o* le mani_ (DO)_. *Ci*_ (reflexive)_ siamo lavat*i* le mani_ (DO)_. Le mani, *le*_ (DO)_ ho lavat*e*_.

If we say _Gli_ (IO)_ ho lavato le mani_, _gli_ is a dative (I washed him/them the hands, litterally) while in _(*Lui*)_ *Si* (reflexive)_ è lavat*o* le mani_ and _(*Loro*)_ *Si* (reflexive)_ sono lavat*i* le mani_, there is a reflexive, like it is in German.
The structure is identic.
So, Bernd is right. When the subject is the same there is a reflexive pronoun while when the agent is different there is a dative.


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## Riverplatense

Nino83 said:


> As a side note, in Italian the past participle agrees with the object only when there is a *direct* object pronoun before the verb



That's why I edited my post. I thought, nobody had seen  But aren't there cases of concordance also with following (direct) objects in earlier stages of Italian?

Edit: Oh, I guess that's off-topic.


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## Nino83

Riverplatense said:


> But aren't there cases of concordance also with following (direct) objects in earlier stages of Italian?


Yes, but it happened also when there wasn't any clitic pronoun.


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## Nino83

In French it is a little different. They say "_ils se sont lavé les mains_", and the past participle doesn't agree because the particle "se" is interpreted as indirect object, not as reflexive pronoun.


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## myšlenka

Ben Jamin said:


> Nowadays it has both the genitive and dative, but the genitive function is secondary. Maybe it would be more precise to say "originally a dative construction adopted to mark possession instead of the genitive".


So the preposition _til_, which historically required the genitive case, should be understood to have primarily a dative function even in a prototypical genitival context (e.g. _bilen til mannen min_)? Do you have a reference on this?


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## francisgranada

Nino83 said:


> ... It seems that Romance languages, German and Slavic languages use the dative case, while in English (and Hungarian) they use the possessive adjective.


In the Western Slavic languages this construction is not restricted to the parts of the body or what we are wearing or what we own (strictly speaking). E.g. phrases like _*to me is died cousin_ (= my cousin has died), _*to me dish has fallen_ (i.e. not necessarily my own dish, but e.g. it has fallen from my hands), _*to me the water is boiling_ (i.e. the water I have put on the stove, not my water), etc ... are common. Is such kind of usage possible/common in German?

Ciao Nino! In Italian, I think the usage of this kind of dative is a bit more restricted or less "broad" comparing with the Slavic. What do you say about my above examples (or similar)  in case of Italian?

As to Hungarian, you are right (with the difference that in Hungarian the possession is expressed by a suffix, not by a possessive adjective). However in some cases it is possible to emphasize the phrase adding the corresponding personal pronoun in dative. The result is a construction like this: _**to me* they have stolen *my *wallet/*mi* hanno rubato il *mio* portafoglio_. But constructions like  _**to me* they have stolen *your *wallet/*mi* hanno rubato il *tuo* portafoglio_ are impossible.

P.S. Is the _dativo di possesso (_or_ dativo possessivo)_ an adequate denomination/term for the dative we are speaking about? I am asking this question because I've encountered this denomination quite often, especially in case of the Romance languages.


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## Nino83

francisgranada said:


> Is such kind of usage possible/common in German?


Yes. In German there are both _dativus commodi_ (benefactive) and  _incommodi_ (a disvantage). 
In English, _dativus incommodi_ can be only prepositional, i.e you can say _they destroyed his car *on him* = sie haben *ihm* das Auto zerstört = (loro) *gli* hanno distrutto la macchina_ but one can't say _they destroyed *him* his car_.
In English the non-prepositional dative can be only _dativus commodi_, for example _they found *him* a good job = the found a good job *for* him_.
If you say _Mary burned *John* a steak_, it can be interpreted only as a _dativus commodi_, i.e John likes burnt steaks and Mary is cooking him a burnt steak. 
The source is Benefactives and Malefactives: Typological perspectives and case studies. 

In Dutch double object benefactive constructions are not allowed with verbs like _throw_ or _carry_ and in the other Mainland Scandinavian Nordic Germanic languages only few verbs allow double object. 
In this respect, German language is very similar to Romance and Slavic languages. This makes me think that this construction was common in Indo-European languages but some (most) Germanic languages lost this feature. 



francisgranada said:


> Ciao Nino! In Italian, I think the usage of this kind of dative is a bit more restricted or less "broad" comparing with the Slavic. What do you say about my above examples (or similar) in case of Italian?



The first two are allowed, _gli è morto il cugino, gli è caduto il piatto_, the third isn't possible but probably for semantic reasons.
These examples are allowed in German.



francisgranada said:


> But constructions like  _**to me* they have stolen *your *wallet/*mi* hanno rubato il *tuo* portafoglio_ are impossible.


These are possible in English, but only with a prepositional object. _They stolen your wallet *from* me, his car broken down *on* him_. 



francisgranada said:


> P.S. Is the _dativo di possesso (_or_ dativo possessivo)_ an adequate denomination/term for the dative we are speaking about? I am asking this question because I've encountered this denomination quite often, especially in case of the Romance languages.


_Dativus possessivus_ is different, it indicates possession. The construction is S-dat O-nom V-to be.
_Liber mihi est > un libro è a me > io ho un libro_. 
_To me is a book > I have a book_.


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## francisgranada

Nino83 said:


> In German there are both _dativus commodi_ (benefactive) and  _incommodi_ (a disvantage) ...


 Thanks, your answer helps me to get more familiar with the adequate terminology. 





> These are possible in English, but only with a prepositional object. _They stolen your wallet *from* me, his car broken down *on* him_.


Of course, finally _they have stolen your wallet *from* me_ is possible also in Italian (_il tuo portafoglio lo hanno rubato *da* me_) and in Hungarian (using the ablative suffix), but it is no more _dative _(even if in case of English it's sometimes hard to determine what is what ) 





> _Dativus possessivus_ is different, it indicates possession ... _Liber mihi est ... _


Yes, in Latin it's clear to me, but I have the impression that this denomination is often used inadequately for the _dativus commodi/incommodi_ in case of Italian, that's why my question. Ok, when I find some example I'll tell you.


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## Nino83

francisgranada said:


> _they have stolen your wallet *from* me_ is possible also in Italian (_il tuo portafoglio lo hanno rubato *da* me_) and in Hungarian (using the ablative suffix), but it is no more _dative_


In Italian it would be _hanno rubato il tuo portafoglio *a me*_ (but we always use the clitic form _mi_), and the right terminology for _dativus commodi/incommodi_ è _dativo d'interesse (di vantaggio/svantaggio)_.
It's true that in the site of Treccani they call it _dativo possessivo_, which is the translation for _dativus possessivus_, making some confusion.
My Latin grammar book calls it _dativo d'interesse (complemento di vantaggio o di svantaggio)_.
You're welcome!


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## francisgranada

Nino83 said:


> In Italian it would be _hanno rubato il tuo portafoglio *a me*_ ...


Hai ragione (ovviamente ) ... Ma questo mi pare un'altra cosa: alcuni verbi in italiano richiedono la preposizione "a", mentre in altre lingue (che conosco) si usa la preposizone/suffisso corrispondente a "da" (p.e.  _chiedere a qualcuno_, invece di _*chiedere da qualcuno_). Insomma, indipendentemente da quello che stiamo discutendo, ci sono anche altri "fenomeni" da prendere in considerazione. Qui mi fermo per non essere OT ...


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## Nino83

francisgranada said:


> alcuni verbi in italiano richiedono la preposizione "a", mentre in altre lingue (che conosco) si usa la preposizone/suffisso corrispondente a "da"


Yes you're right (in Romance languages _rubare, voler, roubar, robar_ take the preposition _to_ while in (some? most?) Germanic ones it takes the preposition _from_).
Anyway, the (general, usual) preposition for _dativus commodi_ is _for_ and that for _dativus incommodi_ is _on_, in English, so we could compare these constructions.


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## francisgranada

Nino83 said:


> ...  It's true that in the site of Treccani they call it _dativus possessivus_, which is the translation for _dativo possessivo_, making some confusion. My Latin grammar book calls it _dativo d'interesse (complemento di vantaggio o di svantaggio) ..._


Yes, this is the case I've been speaking about, i.e. on the Italian forum (now I don't remember in which threads) I  encountered this kind of usage of _dativo possessivo_ and, intuitively, I didn't find it adequate in all cases.


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## Nino83

Yes, I reported the definition of Treccani but I understand now that this translation can be misleading.


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> _Dativus possessivus_ is different, it indicates possession. ...
> 
> _Liber mihi est_


Correct. This is also the possessive dative in German: _Das Buch ist mir_. This form is seldom discussed because for some reason this form it deprecated in standard language and therefore doesn't occur is written texts but it is very frequent in several dialects, mainly Middle German.


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## Encolpius

berndf said:


> _Der Fuß tut mir weh._
> 
> It is a simple _free dative_, a _dativus incommodi_, as in Latin _Mihi pedem laedit._
> 
> 
> 
> This is semantically not the same as _They stole my wallet_. It means I am the person a certain wallet is stolen from. Semantically, it does not imply it was my own wallet, although it pragmatically usually is. It is a _dativus incommodi _as well.



So you cannot say Stiehl mir zwei Äpfel! nur Stiehl zwei Äpfel für mich! 
So there is no difference between Sie haben mir die Brieftasche gestohlen and Sie haben mir meine Brieftasche gestohlen.


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## Encolpius

Riverplatense said:


> _*Le* hanno rubato il mio libro_ >_ They stole my book *from her*_ > _Sie haben *ihr *mein Buch gestohlen_ (*_Sie haben mein Buch von ihr gestohlen_) (dativus incommodi)



Do you find the first German sentence natural? Why did you use the asterisk with the 2nd German sentence?


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## Swatters

Nino83 said:


> Yes you're right (in Romance languages _rubare, voler, roubar, robar_ take the preposition _to_ while in (some? most?) Germanic ones it takes the preposition _from_).
> Anyway, the (general, usual) preposition for _dativus commodi_ is _for_ and that for _dativus incommodi_ is _on_, in English, so we could compare these constructions.



Dutch use two different prepositions depending on the nature of the victim: possessive _van_ with an human being (Je wil van mij stelen - You want to steal from me) ; but _uit _(out in English) when referring to a shop or a place (Ik heb deze broek uit een H&M gestolen - I've stolen these trousers from an H&M).

French has a case alternation here: When the stolen object is not mentioned, the victim is a direct object; when it is, the victim switches to the dative:

J'ai volé mes parents - Je *les *ai volé: I stole from my parents. *_Je lui ai volé _isn't a complete sentence (except colloquially, if "je lui ai" stands for "je le lui ai", but you'd need the stolen object to be the sentence topic anyway)

J'ai dérobé à Sergio ce qu'il avait de plus cher - Je *lui *ai dérobé ce qu'il avait... - I stole from him what he held dearest.


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## berndf

Encolpius said:


> So there is no difference between Sie haben mir die Brieftasche gestohlen and Sie haben mir meine Brieftasche gestohlen.


 How do you deduce that from what I said?


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## Riverplatense

Encolpius said:


> Do you find the first German sentence [scil. _Sie haben *ihr *mein Buch gestohlen_] natural?



Yes, I could perfectly imagine to say so. _Unglaublich! Jetzt haben sie ihr mein Buch gestohlen!_



Encolpius said:


> Why did you use the asterisk with the 2nd German sentence [scil. _Sie haben mein Buch von ihr gestohlen_]?



Because _stehlen_ reigns three arguments: *Jemand *(someone) _stiehlt *jemandem *_(from someone) *etwas *(something). There's no need for a preposition.


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## Nino83

Hi, Francis.
I found in a Czech site the same name, "possessive dative" when a part of the body or an object we wear is involved.
The boundary line between free and 'bound' dative


> _*příteli* se ztratil pes_ *friend-Dat* _a dog got lost_,
> _v uších *mu* hučelo_ _ears *him-*_*Dat* _tingled_,
> _*tetě* se zalesknou oči_ _*to-aunt* eyes glitter_,
> _hodinky *mi* jdou špatně_ _the watch *me-*_*Dat* _doesn't go_
> Possessive dative can be replaced by a possessive pronoun or adjective


Anyway this translation can make some confusion with the Latin _dativus possessivus_.
In general, when we speak about part of the body or objects we wear or own, i.e when this dative can be replaced by the possessive adjective, both terms are used.
http://home.uni-leipzig.de/muellerg/lmnla5.pdf


> Terms frequently used to single out subclasses include “beneficiarydative” or “dativus (in)commodi”, “possessor dative” or “dative of pertinence”, and “dativus iudicantis” (dative of the one who judges).
> Paul  verband  Maria  den  Arm. (“possessor” dative)
> aul bandaged MariaDAT the arm
> Paul bandaged Mary’s arm.’


So it's not only Treccani who name this type of dative "possessive dative".
In fact, in Latin you can say both _hic liber mihi est_ (this book is to me) and _hic liber meus est_ (this book is mine).
http://uni.hi.is/hfv3/files/2013/04/digs2014.pdf


> As in German, the applicatives are often ambiguous between a high (=eventive) and a low reading (=possessive)
> ‘Then the front of his right hand little finger itched.’


It seems that in Old Norse this _dativus commodi_ or "free dative" existed too.
The examples are dated 1300, XIV century.


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## Scholiast

Greetings all

At the risk of being shot down in flames by the Great and the Good here, a tentative observation about the "Ethic" dative ("Verachtet *mir* die Meister nicht..."): there appear to be relics of this (which surely existed in A-S) in modern English:

"Do _*me*_ [him/her/them] a favour"
"Find *me* a solution"
"Sing *her* a seductive song"

And (perhaps best):

"Make _*me*_ a willow cabin at your gate"

Σ


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## Nino83

Scholiast said:


> there appear to be relics of this (which surely existed in A-S) in modern English:
> "Do _*me*_ [him/her/them] a favour"
> "Find *me* a solution"
> "Sing *her* a seductive song"


Hi, Scholiast.
Yes, you're right. The main difference between English and German (with Romance languages and Czech) is that English "dative" is used only as "benefactive case", i.e the recipient is the beneficiary of the action *but* he can't be the one who had some disadvantage from the action.
For example:
Sie hat *ihm* ein Steak gebackt. *Gli* ha bruciato la bistecca. > He doesn't like burnt steaks. (lit. she burned a steak *to him*)
?She burned him a steak. > He likes burnt steaks, he asked her to burn some steak for him.
Sie haben *ihm* das Auto zerstört. *Gli* hanno distrutto la macchia. > He didn't want them to destroy his car. (lit. they destroyed the car *to him*)
?They destroyed him the car. They destroyed the car for him. > He wanted them to destroy his car, he asked them to do it.
I asked in the English forum if you can say "they destroyed the car *on* him" and they said that this construction doesn't work with transitive verbs, it seems that they destroyed his car on his head, like "X broke the bottle *on* his head".
This prepositional construction words mainly with intransitive verbs, for example "his car broke down on him".
The funny thing is that German and Romance languages have the same structure.


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## Scholiast

Greetings

I would do Nino83 [dative] a disfavour, were I not to point out that...



Nino83 said:


> English "dative" is used only as "benefactive case"


...is not entirely right.

Semantically, the indirect object is the case of the person affected by the action, whether "benefactive" (forsooth) or of disadvantage.

"To do <someone> an injury" is hardly "benefactive".

Sorry if I have done Nino83 or anyone else an injustice.

Σ


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## Nino83

Scholiast said:


> "To do <someone> an injury" is hardly "benefactive".


1) This is a normal dative, i.e the indirect object is the receiver of something.
In sentences like _*mi* si è rotta la macchina, *mir *ist das Auto kaputtgegangen_ I'm not the receiver.
2) I'm speaking of "non prepositional datives", double objects, for example.
In English you can't use double objects to say that an action was done to the detriment of someone.
You can't say _they destroyed *me* the car_ or _she burned *me* a steak_, or am I wrong about this?

As I just wrote in #40, Prof. Timothy Colleman writes in Benefactives and Malefactives: Typological perspectives and case studies page 229:



> This is different from English: as pointed out by Green (1974:92) and Goldberg (1995:146), among others, an example like (18) below is only acceptable on the (unlikely) interpretation that Johns likes burnt steak and that Mary was burning one for him in order to prepare it for his consumption. It is not acceptable in a context where Mary has malicious intentions. In other words, the English construction does specify that the subject's act is beneficial and cannot be used to encode malefactive events.
> 
> (18) _Mary burned John a steak_


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## fdb

Nino83 said:


> In English you can't use double objects to say that an action was done to the detriment of someone.



On the contrary: You can say "Your bad advice cost me £100". Two objects.


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## Nino83

fdb said:


> On the contrary: You can say "*Your* bad advice cost me £100". Two objects.


In your sentence "your bad advice" is the subject.


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## fdb

Correct. And there are two objects: "me" and "£100".


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## Nino83

Sentences like _ils *m*'ont demoli ma voiture_ are not possible in English.


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## Scholiast

Greetings [salutative] once [adverb of temporality] more [adverbial modal quantitative explicator]



Nino83 said:


> As I just wrote in #40, Prof. Timothy Colleman writes in Benefactives and Malefactives: Typological perspectives and case studies



Why should I care a fig for what Professor Colleman writes? "Benefactives" and "Malefactives", forsooth. Gibberish. Straightforward grammar gives us, from a transitive verb, a direct and sometimes an indirect object.

Σ


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## Nino83

Scholiast said:


> Why should I care a fig for what Professor Colleman writes? "Benefactives" and "Malefactives", forsooth. Gibberish.


Because it is the object of this thread (i.e _dativus commodi, dative of interest, dative of advantage/disadvantage_)?


Scholiast said:


> Straightforward grammar gives us, from a transitive verb, a direct and sometimes an indirect object.


Using "straightforward" grammar, how would you translate these sentences? 
_Sie haben *ihm* das Auto zerstört. 
On *lui* a démoli sa voiture_.


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## Scholiast

Greetings once more
@...


Nino83 said:


> Using "straightforward" grammar, how would you translate these sentences?
> _Sie haben *ihm* das Auto zerstört.
> On *lui* a démoli sa voiture_.


Quite simple. In both instances, "They've done in his motor"
Σ


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## Nino83

Scholiast said:


> Quite simple. In both instances, "They've done in his motor"


Without any indirect object pronoun. That's what I meant.
Thank you


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## francisgranada

Hi Nino, thanks for the detailed answer and for the interesting links.


Nino83 said:


> ... So it's not only Treccani who name this type of dative "possessive dative"... Anyway this translation can make some confusion with the Latin _dativus possessivus _...


 Yes, however my "problem" was not so the confusion with  the Latin _dativus possessivus, _but rather the usage of this term (or it's variants in other languages) in a more general way, i.e. including also cases like "Sie haben mir die Brieftasche gestohlen" or in Slavic constructions (see my post #39) like _*to me the dish has fallen, *to me the water is boiling _etc_ .._. that I don't consider "possessive". Well, the term_ dativus commodi/incommodi_ seems to resolve my  "terminological  problem" .





> ... the applicatives are often ambiguous between a high (=eventive) and a low reading (=possessive)


If I've understood it correctly, this is what I feel e.g. in case of "Sie haben mir die Brieftasche gestohlen", but also in the Italian "Mi hanno rubato il portafoglio". I.e. these constructions seem to express primarily an _event _that has happened _to me_, and rather secondarily (not explicitly), they suggest that the Brieftasche/portafoglio was _mine_ (that's why Berndf calls it _dativus incommodi - _post #5). Question (for Nino): would you consider/define the dative in this example _in Italian_ the same way as the dative in case of "mi fa male il piede"?  





> Der Fuß tut mir weh.


According to Berndf's post #5,  this is also _dativus incommodi. _That's ok, but have the impression that the Italian version "mi fa male il piede" is more _possessive_-like than the German equivalent. Questions: Do you agree? Is it possible to  say in German "*Mein *fuss tut weh" practically in same same meaning/context as "Der Fuß tut mir weh"? Is it acceptable (not necessarily "officially" or stylistically correct) to say "*Mein *fuss tut *mir *weh"?


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## Nino83

francisgranada said:


> "Sie haben mir die Brieftasche gestohlen", but also in the Italian "Mi hanno rubato il portafoglio". I.e. these constructions seem to expresses an _event _that has happened _to me_, and rather secondarily (not explicitly), they suggest that the Brieftasche was _mine_ (that's why Berndf calls it _dativus incommodi - _post #5). Question (for Nino): would you consider/define this dative _in Italian_ the same way as in case of "mi fa male il piede"?


No, because in "_Der Fuß tut mir weh/mi fa male il piede_" we're speaking of my foot. In Italian we can't say "_mi fa male il tuo piede_" (probably also in German "_Dein Fuß tut mir weh_" is not possible).
In  German free datives and Knight Move Binding Daniel Hole, Universität of Stuttgart, says:


> Paul  verband  Maria  den  Arm.              (“possessor” dative (sometimes with a beneficiary undertone))
> Paul  bandaged  MariaDAT theACC Arm
> ‘Paul bandaged Mary’s arm.’


so, answering to the second question I'd say that it is both, i.e you're saying that the foot, the arm is yours and that Paul made an action on behalf of you.

While in the other examples, you can say "_*mi* hanno rubato il *tuo* libro/Sie haben *mir dein* Buch gestolen_" or "_*mi* hanno rotto la *tua* macchina/Sie haben *mir dein* Auto zerstört_". For example you lent me your book or your car, I've the possession of your car.
Wait for Bernd, Riverplatense or some German native speaker to confirm if the German sentences are right.


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## berndf

francisgranada said:


> Is it acceptable (not necessarily "officially" or stylistically correct) to say "*Mein *fuss tut *mir *weh"?


Yes, it is (if you spell _Fuß _with a capital "F").


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## Nino83

berndf said:


> Yes, it is


And what about these sentences?
_Dein Fuß tut mir weh _(impossible in Italian)
_Sie haben *mir dein* Buch gestolen, Sie haben *mir dein* Auto zerstört_ (both possible in Italian, you said the first is possible in German, what about the second, with the verb _zerstören_?).


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> And what about these sentences?
> _Dein Fuß tut mir weh _(impossible in Italian)


That is not a linguistic but a physiological question. If I were Mr. Spock and would do a Vulcan mind meld with you then I suppose, I could feel your foot hurting and the utterance would be possible. But in our world, I can only feel pain in my own body parts.


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## Nino83

And is _Sie haben *mir dein* Auto zerstört_ possible, grammatical, in German too?


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## berndf

That is a bad example because you wouldn't use a free dative with the verb _zerstören_. But you could say _Sie haben *mir dein* Auto gestohlen._


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## Nino83

berndf said:


> you wouldn't use a free dative with the verb _zerstören_. But you could say _Sie haben *mir dein* Auto gestohlen._


Thank you.
So we can say that sometimes semantic restrictions are not fully coincident between German and Italian.
Anyway, is it possible to say _Sie zerstörten *mir* das Auto, das du *mir* geliehen hast_? (a bit redundant)


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## Nino83

The Dutch linguist Timothy Colleman excluded the presence of the "dative of disadvantage" (_dativus incommodi_) in both English and Dutch, while the Norwegian linguist Jóhanna Barðdal excluded it for Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Faroese and Icelandic.  
It seems that High German is the only Germanic language allowing non prepositional or non periphrastic constructions for the dative of disadvantage.  
Now, it would be interesting to know if this difference was present also in Old Germanic languages or if High German acquired this feature because of language contacts with Romance or Slavic languages.


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## Encolpius

Hello, can I say in German: Thobias hat *mir *den Schokoriegel gegessen.  [and in Italian?]


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## Nino83

Yes, you can, in Italian.
Tobia mi ha mangiato le barrette di cioccolato.


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## Encolpius

Thank you, Nino! Now I really wonder how about German.


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## Nino83

I asked it in the German forum.
"Ich habe *ihm* die Pizza gegessen" 
"Ich habe *ihm* die Pizza *weg*gegessen." 
"Ich habe *seine* Pizza gegessen."  (neutral)


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## Encolpius

Thank you, Nino. Since we do not have that in Hungarian I've always been very fascinated by that phenomenon in other languages, so I could have millions of examples but WR is too small for that. I have checked your thread.


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## Peterdg

Nino83 said:


> The Dutch linguist Timothy Colleman excluded the presence of the "dative of disadvantage" (_dativus incommodi_) in both English and Dutch,


Then he/she is only talking about Dutch in the Netherlands (and there, he/she is right). It is completely normal in Belgian Dutch (and also in the southern provinces of the Netherlands).


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## Angelo di fuoco

Nino83 said:


> As a side note, in Italian the past participle agrees with the object only when there is a *direct* object pronoun before the verb:
> _Ho lavato le mani_ (DO)_. _
> *Mi* (reflexive)_ sono lavat*o* le mani_ (DO)_. *Ci*_ (reflexive)_ siamo lavat*i* le mani_ (DO)_. Le mani, *le*_ (DO)_ ho lavat*e*_.
> 
> If we say _Gli_ (IO)_ ho lavato le mani_, _gli_ is a dative (I washed him/them the hands, litterally) while in _(*Lui*)_ *Si* (reflexive)_ è lavat*o* le mani_ and _(*Loro*)_ *Si* (reflexive)_ sono lavat*i* le mani_, there is a reflexive, like it is in German.
> The structure is identic.
> So, Bernd is right. When the subject is the same there is a reflexive pronoun while when the agent is different there is a dative.



Just a curiosity: could you say _Mi son lavat*e* *le* mani_ in older Italian?



Nino83 said:


> And what about these sentences?
> _Dein Fuß tut mir weh _(impossible in Italian)





berndf said:


> That is not a linguistic but a physiological question. If I were Mr. Spock and would do a Vulcan mind meld with you then I suppose, I could feel your foot hurting and the utterance would be possible. But in our world, I can only feel pain in my own body parts.



Being cavillous: "dein Fuß tut mir weh" could stand for "you've stepped with your foot on mine", so "you are hurting me with your foot", so it could be a particular case of "Du tust mir weh".


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## Nino83

Angelo di fuoco said:


> Just a curiosity: could you say _Mi son lavat*e* *le* mani_ in older Italian?


Ciao, Angelo, I don't know.


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## Hans Molenslag

Peterdg said:


> Then he/she is only talking about Dutch in the Netherlands (and there, he/she is right). [The dative of disadvantage (_dativus incommodi_)] is completely normal in Belgian Dutch (and also in the southern provinces of the Netherlands).


Completely normal, is it? Let's take a few of the German examples mentioned earlier on and compare them to Dutch.

_der Fuß tut mir weh_
de voet doet me pijn 
mijn voet doet pijn 

_sie haben mir die Brieftasche gestohlen_
ze hebben me de portefeuille gestolen 
ze hebben mijn portefeuille gestolen 

_sie haben ihr mein Buch gestohlen_
ze hebben haar mijn boek gestolen 
ze hebben mijn boek bij haar gestolen 

_das Auto ist mir kaputtgegangen_
de auto is me kapotgegaan 
mijn auto is kapotgegaan ​
The sentences marked with a cross are incorrect in both countries.

Timothy Colleman is male by the way.


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## Encolpius

Very interesting comments about the Dutch versions. Too bad no Swedish members here.


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## Nino83

Peterdg said:


> Then he/she is only talking about Dutch in the Netherlands (and there, he/she is right). It is completely normal in Belgian Dutch (and also in the southern provinces of the Netherlands).





Hans M. said:


> Completely normal, is it? Let's take a few of the German examples mentioned earlier on and compare them to Dutch. The sentences marked with a cross are incorrect in both countries.


Exactly! Colleman says that _dativus incommodi_ or dative of disadvantage is not possible in Dutch.
About _dativus commodi_ or dative of *ad*vantage, in Dutch it's possible only with few verbs, like “inschenken”, “opscheppen”, “bereiden”.

We are speaking of "free datives", not of the normal indirect object indicating the recipient of an action in verbs like _give_ (you can say _I baked a cake_, without the beneficiary, so it's a "free dative", but you cannot say _I gave a book_, without an indirect object, this is a normal dative). 


Encolpius said:


> Too bad no Swedish members here.


In North Germanic languages double object constructions are more limited than in Dutch and English.
Sentences like _Hon bakade honom en tårt_ or _Hun lagde ham en kake_ (she made/baked him a cake) are obsolete, and today only the prepositional construction, with _til/till_ is used.
It happens with the dative of advantage, forget the dative of disadvantage. 
See this thread.  

Even in German the use of _dativus incommodi_ is restricted, compared to the Romance and Slavic languages.


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## Encolpius

Nino83 said:


> See this thread.
> Even in German the use of _dativus incommodi_ is restricted, compared to the Romance and Slavic languages.



Oh, you have opened a new thread. Yes, unfortunately there is little chance to get people to threads one wants. 
Yes, it is the commonest in Eastern Slavic and Romance languages. (except Latin) But many German examples surprised me.


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## Nino83

Encolpius said:


> Oh, you have opened a new thread. Yes, unfortunately there is little chance to get people to threads one wants.


yes, if the mountain won't come to... 


Encolpius said:


> Yes, it is the commonest in Eastern Slavic and Romance languages. (except Latin) But many German examples surprised me.


in Western Slavic (Polish, Czech) it's sure, but I'm not sure about Eastern Slavic.
There is one thread in the Russian forum where they didn't know how to translate the English sentence "he desappeared *on me*".
Latin had _dativus commodi_ and _incommodi_ (which is how Romans called it)! 
Romance languages inherited this structure from Latin.


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## Encolpius

Sorry, I mean Western Slavic (Czech, Slovak, Polish)of course.


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## Nino83

I don't know if you're interested, but also the Japanese use the genitive, like Germanic (and Hungarian?) speakers. 
See here.


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## Encolpius

Yes, interesting, but I would not expect Japanese or Asian languages using dative case. But how about languages like Basque, Arabic, (Ancient) Greek, Sanskrit, Persian. Maybe it could be a new typology of languages. Fascinating topic for someone whose mother tongue does not know dative. On the other hand Francis started a new thread HERE and it is not impossible in Hungarian if you want to stress the object then we use "nekem, neked, neki, etc" which is dative of me.


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## Nino83

Interesting. It's a pity I can't understand Hungarian (I put some part on google.translate but...).  
We could start another thread about other languages but I'm not sure that Arabic, Basque or Persian (let alone Sanskrit!) speakers would join it. 
Probably the quickest way is to open a thread in each forum.


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## Encolpius

Nino83 said:


> Interesting. It's a pity I can't understand Hungarian (I put some part on google.translate but...).
> We could start another thread about other languages but I'm not sure that Arabic, Basque or Persian (let alone Sanskrit!) speakers would join it.
> Probably the quickest way is to open a thread in each forum.



The Hungarian examples are something like:
A: Ellopták a pénztárcám. /Megfájdult a fejem ettől a zenebonától!
B: *Nekem *meg a bankkártyámat! / *Nekem *meg a fülem!

A: They stole my wallet. / This loud music made my head hurt.
B: And* to me* the bank card! / And *to me* the ears.

(bankártyám my bank card, bankkártyámat accusativ; fülem my ear, fülemet accusativ)

Yes, this would be the proper forum for topics like that but even I have lost hope.


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## francisgranada

Ciao Nino. Re-read my post #39 ("As to Hungarian ..."). So constructions corresponding to "_mein _Fuss tut _mir _weh"  are possible, but not "der Fuß tut _mir _weh_"_ (i.e. the possession has to be expressed always, even when the dative is used for emphasis).


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## Nino83

Encolpius said:


> The Hungarian examples are something like


Interesting.


francisgranada said:


> possession has to be expressed always, even when the dative added for emphasis


Ciao Francis. Ok, I got it!
Anyway it seems that this use of the dative case *instead of/replacing* the possessive adjective (or the genitive) is a common feature of Romance and Western Slavic languages, and probably also of some Southern Slavic (it's common in Slovenian).
Probably it was present in Proto-Indo-European language, some languages retained it (Romance, West and some South Slavic, to a lesser extent German) and other lost it (West and North Germanic languages, many of these lost the, non-prepositional, dative of advantage too).


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## francisgranada

Nino83 said:


> ...  the dative case *instead of/replacing *the possessive adjective ... Probably it was present in Proto-Indo-European language ...


I have the impression that originally (in PIE or earlier or later - I don't know) the possessive adjective/pronoun was present as well, like in case of "mein Fuss tut mir weh". Only later on, when this kind of construction became diffused enough (grammaticalised), the possessive adjective/pronoun was perceived as redundant (in most cases) and thus omitted. If so, then I can imagine also an independent evolution of "the dative case instead of/replacing the possessive adjective" in various languages/language groups.

In other words, the _dativus commodi/incommodi_ does not _a priori_ imply/require the absence of the possessive, however, omitting the possessive, it has developed to a  certain kind of "dativus possessivus" in many languages (at least in some cases, like in "mi fa male il piede").


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## Sobakus

Nino83 said:


> There is one thread in the Russian forum where they didn't know how to translate the English sentence "he desappeared *on me*".


That's to do with the fact that the English construction is a phenomenon separate from the _Dativus (in)commodi,_ being no Dative at all and, from what I gather, having developed independently. It just as well can't be translated by the Dative in Polish, for example. The Slavic examples in this thread and elsewhere, however, can be easily rendered by the standard Russian possessive construction _у меня_ ("at-to I.GEN."). Furthermore, in cases where no physical possession is possible, the Dative can be used, and then it does correspond to "on me" in some cases:

Поговори́ мне/у меня́!
Talk:IMP.2P.SG. I:DAT/at-to I:GEN.
"You talk [back to me]!"

Не умира́й мне/у меня́!
NEG. die:IMP.2P.SG. I:DAT/at-to I:GEN.
"Don't you dare die on me!"​
Then there's this Dative usage which feels to me to be the generic indirect object, and where _у меня_ sounds out of place because it fails to convey direct involvement:

«Мне разби́ли твою́ маши́ну»
(lit.) "To me they smashed your car"​
From this I conclude that Russian applied the shift from the inherited possessive Dative to often pragmatically possessive cases of what you refer to as _Dativus (in)commodi_. I believe the question of classification of those different kinds of Datives is more convoluted than this thread makes out to be, and I believe the whole thing has its roots in the PIE ways of expressing pertinence (of which possession seems to me to be but a pragmatic sub-type: _mihi est liber tuus). _This thread discusses possession in Indo-European and has a link to a paper discussing possession in Lithuanian which outlines a couple of classifications of possession. This Wikipedia article shows the problem in all its glory.


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## Nino83

Sobakus said:


> This Wikipedia article shows the problem in all its glory.


There is a difference between "possessive dative" and "free dative" (_dativus (in)commodi_).
I can't say "lavo le mani", I must say "mi lavo le mani", like an Englilsh doesn't say "I wash hands", he says "I was my hands". This is the possession of inalienable things (parts of the body, and so on).
A "free dative" can be omitted, the sentence is still grammatical and there is no implicit possessor, beneficiary or a person whose interest is damaged by the action. 
"Ho fatto una torta", "hanno rotto la macchina", "I baked a cake", "they destroyed the car", > "le ho fatto una torta", "gli hanno rotto la macchina", "I baked her a cake (for her)", "they destroyed his car".
It's clear that English, has free datives of advantage but doesn't have any free dative of disadvantage (you're right, the construction "on me" is restricted to some intransitive verbs and it's *only* colloquial, but "gli si è rotta la macchina" and "his car broke down on him" express the *same* thing, the problem is that the English prepositional construction can be applied only to few cases and that it's colloquial, so it's not comparable to the Italian, German or Polish construction).


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## Sobakus

Nino83 said:


> There is a difference between "possessive dative" and "free dative" (_dativus (in)commodi_).
> I can't say "lavo le mani", I must say "mi lavo le mani", like an Englilsh doesn't say "I wash hands", he says "I was my hands". This is the possession of inalienable things (parts of the body, and so on).
> A "free dative" can be omitted, the sentence is still grammatical and there is no implicit possessor, beneficiary or a person whose interest is damaged by the action.
> "Ho fatto una torta", "hanno rotto la macchina", "I baked a cake", "they destroyed the car", > "le ho fatto una torta", "gli hanno rotto la macchina", "I baked her a cake (for her)", "they destroyed his car".
> It's clear that English, has free datives of advantage but doesn't have any free dative of disadvantage (you're right, the construction "on me" is restricted to some intransitive verbs and it's *only* colloquial, but "gli si è rotta la macchina" and "his car broke down on him" express the *same* thing, the problem is that the English prepositional construction can be applied only to few cases and that it's colloquial, so it's not comparable to the Italian, German or Polish construction).


The point I'm trying to make is that fundamentally, both cases are different types of pertinence and started out as the same grammatical construction in the proto-language. Hence my example with _mihi est liber tuus_ – the simple addition of another possessive serves as an off-switch for the "possessive Dative" and an on-switch for the "free Dative" – but while the language evolution differentiated those two to some extent, I say they're fundamentally the same thing and thus nothing is changed on the underlying level. This is exactly what differentiates the English construction from the Slavic (and I presume Romance) ones – the Slavic ones default to possessive meaning unless the context specifies otherwise, while the English one has no relation to possession whatsoever, but mainly with expressiveness. This is why they don't correlate with each other in translation. This is also why Russian made the switch from the Dative to the _u + Genitive_ simultaneously for the cases of both possession and pertinence (with body parts as well).

An interesting fact is that the _u_ is originally the IE *_au_ "away from" and in this meaning pragmatically refers to possession in _*у*кра́сть *у* + Gen. _"to steal from somebody" = "to steal somebody's", which makes me wonder if this wasn't the source of the shift.


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## Angelo di fuoco

Encolpius said:


> Yes, interesting, but I would not expect Japanese or Asian languages using dative case. But how about languages like Basque, Arabic, (Ancient) Greek, Sanskrit, Persian. Maybe it could be a new typology of languages. Fascinating topic for someone whose mother tongue does not know dative. On the other hand Francis started a new thread HERE and it is not impossible in Hungarian if you want to stress the object then we use "nekem, neked, neki, etc" which is dative of me.



I know nothing about cases in Basque, but I can tell you for sure that Modern Greek has lost the dative case. Ancient Greek, for all I know, can use the dative case as a possessive one.
Persian lost case inflection long ago, case inflection in Semitic languages is rudimentary. Modern Standard Arabic has no dative case, only nominative, genitive and accusative. The dialects, for all I know, have lost case inflection altogether.


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