Scrive simona fina...

ciao robert!

mi farebbe piacere se pubblicassi sulla lista un breve sommario delle
risposte:
in particolare mi interesserebbe sapere se hai ricevuto delle descrizioni
teoriche di questo uso del verbo "mangiare".

grazie,

simona fina

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A cui rispondo: Eccone tutte le riposte...

1. Gli esempi che mi vengono in mente sono tutti determinati da un uso di
mangiare reso riflessivo per enfasi.
"Mi sono mangiata un bel pezzo di torta"
"Mi mangio tutta la pasta"
Quindi: mangio per godimento, per me stesso/a.
Era questa la domanda?
Un altro uso che sento solo in Toscana e' addirittura passivo.  
Esempio: Vado a riprendere mia figlia da casa della nonna e la trovo gia'
"mangiata".  Questo nel senso "che ha gia' mangiato, ma usato come se fosse
"e' stata mangiata" cioe'"le e' stato dato da mangiare", corrispondente
all'uso dell'inglese "to feed" che puo' essere passivo.

2. My Florentine wife just walked in my office and we started talking about
your question. She says that it is a false reflexive (since one cannot eat
oneself as you point out), but it is sometimes used to add emphasis to an
action and underline the object of what you're eating. For example:
ho mangiato quattro piatti di spaghetti
as compared to:
mi sono mangiato quattro piatti di spaghetti
The first refers to a normal action, whereas the second expression calls
attention to the fact that this is something out of the ordinary.
Another example, I might say
mi sono bevuto / mi sono fatto una tazzona di caffe'
to emphasize the fact that while I usually don't drink coffee, I really need
some this morning to get going.

3. As far as I know "mangiarsi" is usually used figuratively in terms of
anger - to eat one's own liver, for example as a metaphor for anger -
"mangiarsi fegato" - but it wouldn't be used in terms of "feeding oneself".
Hope this helps.  

4. Basically, the use of the reflexive implies emotional involvement. 
It stresses the subjectives side of the event, the importance 
of the action to the person involved and the intensity of the 
expression.  You can of course say 'Voglio mangiare una pizza' but it 
is more detached as a statement and less emotional than 'Ho fame. 
Voglio mangiarmi una pizza!'.

5. per cio' che riguarda la tua domanda, premetto di non esserne certo, ma
intuitivamente direi che l'hai azzeccata:  mangiarsi = nutrirsi = to feed
oneself in questo caso.  infatti mangiare puo' essere tradotto sia in 'to
feed' sia in 'to eat'.  (es. hai dato da mangiare al cane?  did you feed
the dog?  si, ha mangiato.  yes, he ate).

6. You've probably had an avanlanche of responses already, but here's
another.
 It's a reflexive of interest, as in "I had myself a good old time last
night," or more to the point, "I ate myself a good steak"  "Mi son mangiato
una bella bistecca."

7. [All good but this did the grammatical trick for me- Robert]
Robert, there are idiomatic 'mangiarsi' usages, but I'll assume you refer
to the semantically transparent version, as in "Stasera mi mangio una bella
bistecca." This is the so-called dativo etico (English: ethic dative, also
variously known as dative of interest, I think, dative of advantage, and so
on, depending on the semantics of the usage), which makes overt and
emphasizes the subject's involvement. It's alive and well in my native
substandard AmE ("I 'm gonna drink me a beer"), and the Italian equivalent
is alive and even more well, in that it seems to be much less frowned upon
descriptively (Io mi bevo una birra). 

8.  I think that the best explanation is in the Italian
Grammar written by Francesco Sabatini.
The title is "La comunicazione e gli usi della lingua" (LOESCHER, 
Torino 1984) pag.359-363
He calls it "costruzione riflessiva di affetto" 
For example: Laura si beve un caffe'
                   Mauro si vede un film
                   Loro si mangiano un bel cheeseburger
Why do we put "si"? Because there is a special emotional participation 
in the action. It means that when "io mi bevo il caffe'", I have 
a special feeling in doing that!!!!! (or we have a special purpose when "ci 
guardiamo un film" or we have a strong participation in doing something).
Sabatini says that it is "riflessivita' psicologica" or "di affetto (strong
feeling positive or negative)".
It is very common in the spoken language but in literature, too!!!
It is not surprising, because in Latin and Ancient Greek it existed.
It was called "forma media" In Greek for example "louo" means "I wash"
(active form) and "louomai" means "I wash myself" or "I wash for me
...(s.thg)" (forma media) and another verb that means "I want" is "boulomai"
(there is no active form!!!!) because the willingness is inside the person
who "wants"!!!!

9. Without the phrase and context, I can only suggest that you
are thinking of something like "si è mangiato una bistecca ieri",
which simply means "he ate a steak, yesterday" or "he had a steak,
yesterday."

10. mangiarsi: anche nei miei dizion`ari non c'`e una definizione della
                propria parola 'mangiarsi' .. ma .. 
     
        forse si voglia dire "to eat away at one'self"
              
               and also, to take back [lit: possibly the connotation of
               eating one's words.]

       Siccuro sto io che Voi avete notato anche i t`ermini:
       mangiarsi la parola = "To break one's word or promise"
       mangiarsi la promesa anche si vuol dire "To break one's promise"
       mangiarsi le unghie = to bite one's nails.

       Non potevo trovare qualsiasi altri definizioni.

       f`amelo sapere se questi vi ha aiutati.

11. I am no linguist and I have seen noe of the other answers, but I would
say that "mangiarsi" is equivalent to "ingoiarsi"

12. Just an idea early in the morning, but could the reflexive be what used
to called in some languages and some contexts an "ethical dative"?  Thus,
"to 
eat for one's own benefit."

Beh! Boh! Bona. Mille grazie a tutti. 
Robert Bernardino Colasacco
Un'altra domanda, come si traduce in inglese Colasacco? Io dico leaky sack!!


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