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I found this line in a song.

Я заторчал с тобой Всего лишь дозу Дай себя

Why is "доза" in the accusative case? It doesn't seem to be the object of a verb, and that it would mean the same in the nominative. I've seen a couple sentences like this where a word will be in the accusative, while not seeming to be an object of a verb. Accusative seems to have another hidden meaning, but not sure.

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  • because author is a drug-addicted ? :> _____ Really, the wild "дай себя" sound more strange too... :>
    –  Пилум
    Commented Sep 1, 2021 at 7:13
  • This is unfinished or ungrammatical sentence. And it lacks necessary punctuation.
    – Anixx
    Commented Sep 3, 2021 at 23:26

4 Answers 4

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The song in question is Прятки by HammAli And Navai, that phrase is shortly after 1:50.

There are two points to be noted:
• most probably there is no word c there;
• дозу is the direct object of дай.

Although some sites (including YouTube in the link above) maintain there is c in с тобой, I cannot hear it neither there, nor in this live performance, and there is a site which has the lyrics without c.

With punctuation normalized, the phrase looks like this:

Я заторчал тобой. Всего лишь дозу!
Дай себя, пока совсем не стало поздно!

Заторчать is drug addicts’ slang for ‘to get high’ and the c does make difference: я заторчал с тобой is ‘you and I got high’, while я заторчал тобой is ‘I got high on you’ meaning “you're my drug I got high on”. Quite metaphoric, and the metaphor continues in the next words: Всего лишь дозу! // Дай себя, пока совсем не стало поздно! — ‘[Give me] just a dose! Give me yourself before it's too late!’ — meaning “I need you like an addict needs a dose, give me a piece of yourself or I'll suffer from withdrawal.” In fact, Дай себя explains what was meant by Всего лишь дозу!

Всего лишь дозу! — the Accusative case without a preposition can mean only one thing: the noun is the direct object. A sentence consisting of a noun phrase in Accusative without a verb is a typical way to demand a thing, the implicit verb being the imperative дай(те) [мне]! ‘give me!’: There is a famous quote from Richard III by William Shakespeare: Коня! Полцарства за коня! ‘[Give me] "A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!"’ — Коня! is in the Accusative case.

The whole phrase can be translated as ‘I got addicted to you. A mere dose! Give yourself to me before it's too late!’

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  • 1
    Thanks for the reply, I'm pretty sure I understand, but just to clarify, when he says "Всего лишь дозу" he's redefining what he meant by себя in "дай себя"?
    – Colossians
    Commented Sep 1, 2021 at 2:16
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    @Dumbysol - I'd put it the other way round: when he says себя in "дай себя" he's redefining what he meant by "Всего лишь дозу": she is his dose.
    – Yellow Sky
    Commented Sep 1, 2021 at 2:50
  • @Dumbysol The absence of с is correct, but the punctuation and interpretation suggested here aren't. The correct version is "Я заторчал тобой. Всего лишь дозу дай себя, пока не поздно", which is also clearly heard in the video. There is no redefining of "dose" with "give me yourself", it is "give me but a dose of yourself" to begin with, like the other answer correctly suggests. It's perfectly normal for poetry to break a sentence like this.
    – GSerg
    Commented Sep 1, 2021 at 20:47
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    When I was young I also tried to learn English by listening to songs and trying to understand lyrics. That was challenging. One time I got access to a foreign exchange student, and I interrogated her trying to get to the bottom of the meaning of some song I listened back then, she could not explain and was telling me that it was a silly song with silly words, I could not accept that. Many years later when my command of English has improved I realised that it was indeed a silly song with silly words. My advise: do NOT learn a foreign language via songs, you will get frustrated.
    – Andrew Savinykh
    Commented Sep 2, 2021 at 3:56
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It's difficult to interpret this phrase without punctuation. We can also normalize the word order in "Всего лишь дозу Дай себя" to "Дай всего лишь дозу себя" (Give me just a dose of yourself)

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  • Please add further details to expand on your answer, such as working code or documentation citations.
    – Community Bot
    Commented Sep 1, 2021 at 10:48
  • I agree with the Community. You should add the working code.
    – Anixx
    Commented Sep 3, 2021 at 23:35
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While Yellow Sky's answer seems to be correct (+1), I'll also note that the text as you have written in the question (with "с") seems also perfectly valid for me. You need just to assume that "Всего лишь дозу" actually continues the previous sentence:

"Я заторчал с тобой всего лишь дозу. Дай себя..."

In this case, "дозу" will be a direct object of "заторчал", and a whole sentence can easily be understood as "I have consumed only one dose with you". "Заторчать" is a slang word without a well established meaning or way of use, in particular no-one will tell you whether it accepts an object or not, and what this object should be, so "заторчать одну дозу" seems to me to be well within the range of uses of "заторчать".

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Я заторчал с тобой Всего лишь дозу Why is "доза" in the accusative case? It doesn't seem to be the object of a verb

Actually, your guess is correct: "доза" is the object of verb "заторчал", and because of this it requires accusative case.

Short sencence: Я заторчал дозу

Я заторчал (с тобой) (Всего лишь) дозу

Good luck in study Russian!

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