The Dativus Ethicus (henceforth DE) is a grammatical construction with an ancient lineage. Strict grammarians point out that it is colloquial and from the point of view of the written language always appears as a structurally superfluous element (Hofmann & Szantyr, 93). Nevertheless they cite examples from Sophocles (o: teknon, e: veve:ken e:min o ksenos), Cicero (Hic tibi rostra Cato advolat) the New Testament (Schwyzer, 149). So it is eminently respectable, but it would seem that in some Indo-European languages it is not totally acceptable. For example, it is common in colloquial French especially with the imperative and the first person singular Prends-moi le bon parti. ‘Just be sure you make the right choice’. (Marouzeau, 70); Regarde-moi ça! ‘ Just look at that!’. But you will probably not find it listed in a standard French reference grammar. For English, which has no ‘dative’ as such, not even in the pronominal system, there is nevertheless a fairly widespread phrase with ‘on’ plus any personal pronoun often preceded by the verb ‘to go’: They’ve gone and bought that bike on us/ on you/ on me/ on him/ on them. The implications are usually negative for the hearer or speaker and as a construction, stylistically, it is lower than colloquial; it is definitely non-standard. But it also begs the question of the demarcation between the dative of interest (henceforth DI) and the DE - a problem which raises its head very frequently. Speakers of standard Dutch and German use the DE in a colloquial context. It would seem, however, that whereas in Dutch it is current and accepted as characteristic of the spoken word - Wat doe je me daar nou? ‘What are you up to now?’; Waar kom je me nou mee aanzelten? ‘So what have you got in mind to do now?’ In German despite the frequently quoted Das waren dir Kerle ‘That was a great lot of fellows for you’, it is apparently disapproved of by the grammatically-minded.

Vaillant in his comparative grammar (p.86) considers the term ‘ethic dative’ as equivalent to what he calls the ‘dative of the emphatic expression of interest’. In other words he is lumping together what we have endeavoured to keep apart, the dative of interest (DI) and the DE. Following the usual classical pattern he sees it as tied to the first and second person pronouns. He quotes examples from OCS and Serbian folk-songs: Tužan ti je život moj. ‘My life is so sad’. Čudna ti mi godinica dođe. ‘It is going to be a wonderful year for me, you know’. He then adds that the modern languages Bulgarian, Macedonian, Polish and Russian have extended this dative construction to the reflexive - si (B spi si; M idi si) in the case of the first two, sobie (žyje sobie wygodnie ) and sebe (ležať sebe ) respectively for the second two, all of which Vaillant describes as an ‘expressive development’. The very fact that they are reflexive would exclude these last types from being DE as far as the strict parameters we have accepted are concerned. At the same time we shall come across examples of the DI which lie very close to the DE, certain Russian ‘equivalents', for example: R Moloko u vas ubežalo ~ Cz Uteklo vám mleko. ‘That milk of yours has boiled over’. So the two constructions, DE and DI will be taken into account where it is too artificial to disentangle them, but in the list of examples the DE are labelled.

In his pioneering work on Croatian Maretić describes DE as being unnecesary (bez ikakve potrebe) and found above all in folk-songs. The school grammar of Brabec et al, (officially titled SerboCroatian but I am assuming that a work published in Zagreb in 1958 refers basically to the ‘western variant’) notes that the first and second person forms of the pronouns (enclitic in the singular) can be used to express an emotionally-charged connection between the speaker and the person addressed. Without the dative form the sentence will have the same referential meaning. It is only to be used between people who know each other well. The authors assume a somewhat negative attitude and condemn the overuse of it in conversation (p.227). On the other hand the use of the ethic dative in Croatian is considered by Hamm to be ‘intimate, friendly’ (P.118); from him there is no note of disapproval.

For Czech DE is described by Trávníček (p.1223) as used only with first and second persons and indicating the attitude of the speaker to his utterance. His examples are drawn from Czech classics but all are quotations of conversations. Milauer sees the function of the DE as making contact between speaker and the audience and consequently it is not part of the ‘purely intellectual language' (p. 223).

In 1953 the eminent Polish grammarian Szober was very disdainful of the DE. He declared (p. 352) that once upon a time the personal dative forms mi, ci, and sobie did have their own meaning but that has now vanished and nowadays they are superfluous in such utterances as Józef’, ty mi się nie buntuj! ‘Joseph, don’t you start playing me up!' Or Wrony przechadzają się sobie poważnymi kroki. ‘The crows were wandering around stepping out with an air of importance’. The first example we would accept as DE, the second is DI. Szober then says, of course, that the dative in both cases could be left out without detracting from the meaning. His final judgement is that the habit of using this dative is most commonly found in popular dialects and in urban speech. [Definitely not ‘polszczyzna piękna i poprawna! vmd]. More than a decade later, Adam Heinz refers to the DE as having the role of a particle which emphasizes the emotional state of the utterance chodźcie mi tutaj. 'Just come here a moment'. (p. 106). For him it is simply a part of the language.

The DE in Slovak is often confused with the ubiquitous si dative of interest when it comes to grammatical description. In the excellent Syntax of Oravec and Bajzíková, for instance, there is a note (p.109) dealing with the ‘free dative’, so called because it is not ‘governed by words with proper meaning’ and is ‘simply semantically motivated’ and a suggestion that it is a kind of grammatical aberration not meriting serious consideration, hence just a note. The illustrative sentences are a very mixed bag labelled ‘adverbial’, ‘possessive’, ‘dative of the logical subject’, and ‘emotional’ (citový) most of which are of the dative of interest/ possession type. The much more modern work of Mistrík notes the DE as having a deictic function. He gives examples (p. 166) and makes no reference to its being relegated to lower levels.

As regards Russian along with Ukrainian and Belorusian, these are the three East Slav languages which do not have DE strictly speaking but have the dative of interest - in the long form of course. Rusyn and possibly Rusak (my data for Rusak are very limited) are exceptions - they behave like West Slav languages in this respect. Vanko maintains that some Ukrainian dialects in Ukraine itself in fact have DE as Rusyn does (p. 57). The outstandingly perceptive Russian grammar produced in Prague in the 60's - the Příruční Mluvnice Ruštiny I & II (henceforth PMR) - has a long discussion on this subject (PMR. II, pp. 80-2). The equivalent to Czech DE is often an expression such as znaješ, skažu tebe. Russian is extremely rich in particles and there seems no limit to the variations. Cz Ať se mi pěkně učite = R Smotrite učites’ horošenko. ‘Just see to that you study properly’. Cz To je vám prace! = R Nu i rabota! ‘ That’s some job!’ Cz Ja ti dám válet se na divaně.= R Ja tebe povaljajus’ na divaně. ‘I’ll give you messing around on the sofa!’ Russian also makes great use of dative + impersonal reflexive where Czech would use a dative of interest: Cz: Dnes se mi dobře spívá.= R Mne segodnja pojëtsja.'I’m in good singing form today’(PMR II , 105). The use of the preposition ‘u’ with the genitive can also be the equivalent of the DE: Pokriči u menja ješče! ‘For heaven’s sake stop that shouting!’(Čukovskij). Cz Ztratila se mi kniha. = R U menja propala kniga.'I've somehow lost my book'. (PMR I, 299). Again the very common and colloquial expression Vot te (tebe) raz (na)! ‘Well I never!’ (Kveselevič & Sasina, 74) obviously started life as a DE, but since Russian no longer has enclitic pronouns the force of the dative (despite the variant tebe) has been lost.

Czech again uses both DE and DI but, not surprisingly in a linguistic milieu which still clings to three styles even if only in theory, the grammarians would rather not have to acknowledge them though they are heard and also have been written since Čapek’s time - some eighty years now!

“Gospodin učitelju, šte si hodim li?” 'Teacher, shall we go too?' (Karaslavov).

Trăgnal mi sveti Georgi. 'My Saint George has gone'. (Beaulieux, 82).[DE]

Toj si ima kašta.' He has a house'.(Beaulieux)

Daj mi si lulata, šte si ti dam kučeto.' Give me back the pipe, I’ll give you the puppy'. (Karaslavov).

Nechoď mi tam! ‘Now make sure don’t you go there!’(Trávníček, 1223).[DE]

Upadla ti a hledáš ji (=třiska) ‘It’s gone and you’re still looking for it!’ (Šotola).

Tak vám měl král v paláci dva psy (Čapek) ‘So there was the king in the palace with two dogs’.[DE]

A to je mi čistá historie. ‘As far as I’m concerned that’s just made up’. (Šmilauer).

To ti byla mela. ‘That was some row, I can tell you (Bečka, 159). [DE]

Bili smo ti u trgovini pa smo ti kupili odijelo za našego sina. ‘We were in the shop, you know, and we bought a suit, you know, for our son.’(Brabec et al, 227) [DE]

Przypaliły się mu ziemniaki. ‘ Those potatoes of his have got a bit burnt’.

Schowaj mi tę książkę! ‘Get that book out of my sight!’[DE]

Nie przyjeżdżaj mi taksówką. ‘Don’t go taking a taxi to get here’. [DE]

Tylko mi si´ nie przewróć! ‘Just don’t get sick on me!’ (Wierzbicka, 395). [DE]

Počinaju mi še tresc ljisti [Rk] ‘I can see the leaves beginning to tremble’. (Duličenko, 69);

To mi byla svaľba![Rn] ‘That was some wedding I can tell you!’ (Vanko, 58).[DE]

Tá ti vám má rozum na všetko. ‘She of course thinks she’s right about everything.’[DE]

Ak si chceme ďalej vyjasňovať pomer medzi vetou a vypovedu...'If we want now to distinguish between a sentence and an utterance..'. (Rušička).

Bečka J V (1947) Úvod do České Stylistiky. Prague.

Duličenko A D (1987) 'O perevodah serbolužickoj poèzii na literaturnyj jazyk jugoslavskih rusin', Lětopis , Rjad D čo.2. Budyšin.

Heinz, Adam (1965) System Przypadkowy Języka Polskiego. Kraków.

Mistrík, J (1985) Stylistika. Bratislava.

Šmilauer V (1966) Novočeská skladba. Prague.

Trávníček, F (1951) Mluvnice spisové češtiny. I & II . Prague.