Re: Triggeriness ...

Quoting Javier BF <uaxuctum@...>:

> > 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.
I'm not asking what Tagalog's system is called; I'm asking what the system I
sketched a few posts back would be called!

How would you, btw, describe active and tripartite in terms of verbal voice
and semantics?

                                                                   Andreas