"Throw you with a stone" vs "Throw a stone at you"

This has to do with the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs. I think.

Transitive verbs require an object, whilst intransitive ones do not.

With transitive verbs, the first object, or whatever stands for an object (most often a noun or a personal pronoun), after the verb is most likely the object.

In "I'll throw you with a stone" the word "you" immediately follows "throw"; this means that "you" is the object of "throw"; which would imply that the speaker will hurl the interlocutor, after which said interlocutor, propelled by the force of the speaker's powerful throw, will have to travel some distance involuntarily, presumably through the air, and crash-land once the gravity and friction have worn down the initial force imparted to him or her by the act of throwing. The stone, then, serves as an instrument: the speaker intends to toss the interlocutor some distance with the help of that stone (possibly sling-shaped), in accordance with the prophecy.

Oh, and, by the way, despite the Biblical allusion, throwing rocks is more common than throwing stones these days. Hmm. That's not exactly accurate. Wait. Ah! I got it: stones are cast; rocks are thrown. Or hurled.

Conversely you'd need to come up with a very convoluted sentence to include "cut at you with a knife". Also "throw X at someone" is very different to "throw X to someone". Some verbs need a preposition in some sentences to make the meaning clear. It's the verb rather than the noun (weapon here) that makes the difference: you could "hurt someone with" a knife or a stone or other projectile.

It all hangs on the meaning of to throw. It looks as though to throw can mean to hit in South Africa. You definitely can hit someone with a stone. But this is not a meaning you will find in dictionaries. The basic, conventional meaning of to throw is, quoting from Longman Dictionary:

1 Throw a ball/stone etc. [intransitive and transitive] to make an object such as a ball move quickly through the air by pushing your hand forward quickly and letting the object go

So, if you want to hit someone with a stone, you usually send a stone, not the person, flying through the air. If you’re on ship I suppose you could throw somebody overboard with a stone tied to them to make sure they sink. Or you could throw somebody off a horse with a stone, i. e., by hitting them with a stone.

This is the story for standard British and American Englishes:

The Direct Objects of different verbs represent different entities in relation to the story told by the verb. The Direct Object of the verb CUT often indicates the thing being incised. Here is a picture of someone "cutting a cake":

The Direct Object of the verb throw usually represents the thing travelling through the air. Here is a picture of someone "throwing a cake":

Notice that the Direct Object of throw doesn't represent the person getting a cake when there is only one Object of the verb. Here is a picture of someone "throwing a person":

This is the prime reason why I'm going to throw you does not achieve the meaning required for most speakers of British and American Englishes. The story may be different for speakers of other types of English.

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Grammar note:

Of course when used with two objects, the Indirect Object represents the recipient of the missile, and the Direct Object is the missile itself. However, with this usage, the idea conveyed is usually that the person receiving the missile co-operates in receiving it:

• He threw [me] [the keys].

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_{Picture references}

_{1. Wikihow. 2. Pandamari at Cabin Pressure Fans. 3. Mansitioning.com.}

"He threw me with a stone" is a very similar construction to "He presented me with a medal", and the alternative "He threw a stone at me" is a very similar construction to "He presented a medal to me". In both constructions, we have two complements to a verb whose relationship to the verb is expressed by prepositions. But it's hard to see what is going on, because the preposition that happens to come next to the verb is lost.

That is, abstractly, we must begin with

He threw at me with a stone
He presented to me with a medal

and allow for the two complements to occur in either order after the verb. Whichever oblique complement turns up next to the verb gets promoted to direct object.

Although Fillmore did not deal with these specific examples, the fundamental idea of this analysis is that behind Charles Fillmore's theory of Case Grammar. At a deep level, the relationship of the verb of a clause to its complements is expressed by prepositions in English and by various oblique cases in many other languages, then certain of these oblique complements are promoted to become the non-oblique "upright" subject or object, or nominative and accusative.

I personally think that throwing a stone at someone has a varied and passive meaning. You can throw a stone at someone to grab their attention. On the other hand, when you throw someone with something, you do it with the intention of hurting them. A listener will be able to distinguish between the nature of the following sentences when the speaker says:

1. He threw the ball at me.
2. He threw me with a ball.

We can gather from the first sentence that this was probably a game. There were several targets and they happened to strike you out so now you are it. The second sentence insinuates/could mean that their actions were a violent one.