🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Jul30.114240.14315@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:

# DP:
#
# >The example with three datives was indeed my error, but the example
# >with two is one that I also have encountered and had native speakers
# >accept -- this is the "nam bylo pomoch' emu" (to-us was help to-you
# >'we had to help you') example.
#
# Again, my experience differs.
#
# [...]
#
# DP:
# [...]
# >Mr. Zeleny, is "nam bylo poexat' tuda" `to-us was go there` also
# >impossible for you?  Do you also need 'nado' in there?
#
# Absolutely.  So does everyone I've asked so far.

I wonder if the tense is interfering with the judgment.  How about
these:

        Kak mne pomoch' emu?
        Kak nam poexat' tuda?

I. Pul'kina & E. Zakhava-Nekrasova (_Russian: A practical grammar with
exercises_, Moscow: Russian Language Publishers, 1980) have a couple
of pages of these sentences (pp. 529-531).  Most of the examples are
either questions (e.g., "Kogda mne prijti k vam?") or negatives (e.g.,
"Nekomu rukovodit' rabotoj"), except for those with imperative force
and a few that "denote obligation or the inevitability or
impossibility of an action."  The most complex in this short list is
"Tebe ne reshit' etoj zadachi," translated as "You cannot solve this
problem."

The only example given with two datives is "Chto mne rasskazat' vam?"
translated as "What must I tell you?"  Is the interpretation "What
can you tell me?" impossible?

There is also one example of this sentence type in the past: "Komu
bylo poruchit' etu rabotu? -- Etu rabotu bylo nekomu poruchit'."

I'm intrigued by the lack of past affirmative examples.  How about
this one?

        Mne pomoch' bylo emu, no ne uspel.

F.M. Borras and R.F. Christian (_Russian Syntax_, Oxford: The
Clarendon Press, 1959) also have a few of these sentences, covering
just about the same range as Pul'kina and Zakhava-Nekrasova.  But they
also include a couple with a dative and "est'", similar to the one
with three datives that David Pesetsky posted.  One example is "Nam
est' gde raspolozhit'sja lagerem" ("There is somewhere for us to pitch
our camp").  But they say this construction is limited to place,
reason, and time, thus apparently excluding "nam est' komu ..."

David Johns