DARING

The verbs dare (and one sense of venture) indicate that the subject had enough courage to do something; they are often found in the negative doesn’t dare, doesn’t venture. Dare and venture take a Modal (FOR) TO complement and have no roles additional to those of the verb of the complement clause—compare John didn’t dare to enter the lion’s cage, John didn’t enter the lion’s cage.

Dare can be used causatively with a rather special meaning, ‘say to someone that you think they haven’t enough courage to do something’, e.g. Fred dared John to enter the lion’s cage. This use of dare is similar in meaning and syntax to challenge. (Note that the causative use of dare is not parallel to a Secondary-B verb like want. Tom wants Bill to go becomes Tom wants to go when the subjects of the two clauses coincide. However, John didn’t dare to go (‘lacked sufficient courage’) has a quite different meaning from John didn’t dare himself to go (‘didn’t challenge himself to go’).)

Like need, dare can be used as a lexical verb—taking tense and 3sg -s inflection, and complementiser to, and requiring do in questions and negatives when there is no other auxiliary element present—and it can also be used as a modal—with no inflections and no to, and itself acting as an auxiliary in questions and negatives. Compare: John didn’t dare to go, Did John dare to go? and John daren’t go, Dare John go?

The two syntactic uses of dare carry a semantic difference. The lexical verb sense tends to refer to an inner state of the subject, as in (1a), and the modal use to some external circumstance, as in (1b).

(1a) He doesn’t dare to touch Mary (he hasn’t the courage, since she is so beautiful and he is too shy)

(1b) He doesn’t dare touch Mary (for fear of catching AIDS)

Corresponding to its ‘external’ meaning, the MODAL sense of dare (as of need) is found almost exclusively in questions and negative sentences.