Beginning a sentence with "que"

Question

The context is a friend tells me this about the bad treatment another person (a man) did to me:

"Es sólo su problema. Pero que no llegue a faltarte AL respeto de ninguna manera".

I have 2 questions:

1. ... no llegue a ... means : don't he dare to.. but what is the relationship between 'llegar' (arrive) and 'dare'

2. why the sentence begins with 'que'? I know a common one is when you wish somebody something, eg. Que te vaya bien. What are the different sutuations for beginning with 'que'

Thx.

I Sunflower. Please remember to capitalize. Thanks. :) - rac1, Mar 17, 2017

Answer 1

Pero que no llegue a faltarte AL respeto de ninguna manera".

We have various, somewhat idiomatic ways to use que as a single word in a sentence. Sometimes it is simply an omission of another word such as por / espero / deseo /etc, however in your sentence with the "missing words" it would be something like: Pero más le vale que no llegue a faltarte al respeto ....... (Better for him that he not disrespect you / He better not dare to ....)

I agree that "to come to" is a good translation for "llegar" in this cases.

Answer 2

From the excellent Gerald Erichsen:

When llegar a is followed by an infinitive, it is often the equivalent
of the English "to come to." It often carries the connotation that the
activity is extreme, unusual or unexpected:

You can follow the link for examples.

As for que, I think you have identified what's going on here. Que is used with the subjunctive to express desires.