Re: Triggers and Voice

Barry Garcia wrote:
> >Actor and patient focus do indeed work like active and passive voice
> >respectively. But only to the extent that they promote the actor and
> >patient as subject/topic/focus. Their main difference is that the
> >valency of the verb in a voice system changes but does not in a trigger
> >system. So they are indeed not quite active and passive voices.
>
> This is helping, yes, i'm not quite sure i get verb valency, but i think
> it's crystalizing.
Valency (more specifically, syntactic valency) has to do with the
required number arguments that must be present in any given clause.
A transitive verb is one that describes a relationship between two
participants such that one of the participants acts toward or upon
the other. Two core arguments are therefore required. An intransitive
verb, on the other hand, is one describing a property, state, or
situation involving only one participant. So there can only be one
core argument. There are also trivalent verbs requiring three
participants (whereas transitive verbs are bivalent, while
intransitive verbs are univalent).

> While we're on the topic, how do the other triggers
> work, like the locative, beneficial, and instrumental?
I'm assuming you mean with regards to valency?

Well, valency still does not change. Below are Tagalog examples
taken from "Concise Compendium of the World's Languages", with the
grammatical relationship of each semantic role.:

   AGENT = focus   PATIENT, LOCATION, BENEFICIARY = oblique
   "Bumili si  Pedro ng  aklat sa  lunsod para kay Fidel"
    buy:AT TRG Pedro GEN book  OBL town   for  GEN Fidel

   PATIENT = focus   AGENT, LOCATION, BENEFICIARY = oblique
   "Binibili ni  Pedro ang aklat sa  lunsod para kay Fidel"
    buy:PT   GEN Pedro TRG book  OBL town   for  GEN Fidel

   LOCATION = focus   AGENT, PATIENT, BENEFICIARY = oblique
   "Binibilhan ni  Pedro ng  aklat ang lunsod para kay Fidel"
    buy:LT     GEN Pedro GEN book  TRG town   for  GEN Fidel

   BENEFICIARY = focus   AGENT, PATIENT, LOCATION = oblique
   "Ibinilhan ni  Pedro ng  aklat sa  lunsod si  Fidel"
    buy:BT    GEN Pedro GEN book  OBL town   TRG Fidel

Notice how the number of core arguments does not change from one
trigger form to another. All of the above sentences have only one
core argument: the argument in focus. All other arguments are
oblique. If this were a voice system, we would expect to see a
change in the number of core arguments from one form to another.
Notice how a change in topicality in English would change the
number of core arguments:

   ACTIVE
   "The bird ate the roach."           AGENT = subject
                                       PATIENT = object

In the active clause, both arguments are core arguments. Hence, two
core arguments. Hence the clause is bivalent.

   PASSIVE
   "The roach was eaten by the bird."  PATIENT = subject
                                       AGENT = oblique

In the passive clause, only the patient is a core argument. The agent
is no longer a core argument and is now an oblique argument. Hence a
change in valency to a univalent clause.

Such a change in valency never ever happens in trigger languages.

> Kristian is a godsend on this list :)
Oooh shucks!

-kristian- 8)

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