Re: Triggeriness ...

> Should I interpret that that Tagalog indeed _does_ work that way (which
would
> bury Christophe's position it can't be classified as acc/erg/etc), or
that
> there's other languages that does it? In that case, is there any name
for this
> structure?
English assigns, by default, the role 'agent' to
its main core case, the nominative, and the role
'patient' to its secondary core case, the accusative,
and that's what the label "accusative language"
refers to. But note that I said "by default", because
when in English the nominative is combined with a
passive voice in the verb, its role is then changed
into 'patient', so the semantics of English nominative
case is dependent on verbal voice. Basque, for its
part, assigns by default the role 'patient' to its
main core case, the absolutive, and the role 'agent'
to a secondary core case, the ergative, and that's
what the label "ergative language" refers to. Having
no alternation of voices, the semantics of Basque
cases are not dependent on this aspect of the
verb with which they are associated. Then, Tagalog
is not an accusative nor and ergative language,
because it has only one core case (the 'subject'
or 'trigger' or however you like to name it) and
this case has none of the roles assigned to it by
default, being its semantics entirely determined
by and dependent on verbal voice. Is there a name
for this structure? Well, I think that's what
the label "trigger language" refers to.

Cheers,
Javier

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