Re: Triggers and Voice

CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU writes:
>what's a trigger?
In trigger/focus verbal systems like Tagalog, verbs (also called "focus")
change form depending upon which part of the sentence the speaker
considers the most important part (generally by affixes which can be
prefixes, suffixes, circumfixes, or infixes).

So, using a trigger/focus system, you can highlight the actor (one who
does the action), the recipient/object (that which receives said action),
who it is benefiting, the instrument of the action, or the location of the
action. The focus of the trigger generally has an associated marker in
front of it. Other parts of the sentence (the non-focus) have a marker of
their own. Tagalog even has markers that distinguish between proper nouns
and things (si - names, ang - things).

Why i asked the question is, in Tagalog, i've read that the actor focus
works something like active voice, and the object focus works something
like passive voice, but not quite.

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