Re: Easy and Interesting Languages -- Website

Mark P. Line scripsit:

> Triggers work in two parts: you use a  "trigger" morpheme to mark a clause
> constituent (commonly a noun) as focused, and you mark the "role" (e.g.
> agent, patient, location, etc.) of this triggered (focused) constituent
> somewhere else in the clause. In Tagalog, the role is marked by affixes on
> the verb. Note that triggers implement both a topic/focus function and a
> valence assignment function.
The role assignment is uncontroversial, but the question of focus is not;
there are supposedly counterexamples to the claim that the trigger argument
is always the focus.

--
John Cowan  www.ccil.org/~cowan  www.reutershealth.com  jcowan@reutershealth.com
"'My young friend, if you do not now, immediately and instantly, pull
as hard as ever you can, it is my opinion that your acquaintance in the
large-pattern leather ulster' (and by this he meant the Crocodile) 'will
jerk you into yonder limpid stream before you can say Jack Robinson.'"
        --the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake

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