Re: Triggeriness ...

Quoting Barry Garcia <barry_garcia@...>:

> Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@...> writes:
> >I don't say they must be; it's just that to me, insisting they're
> >something
> >else seems to be needlessly complicating things.
>
> I think equating them to cases only confuses newbies. Had my Tagalog
> instructor, or the books i have insisted Tagalog triggers were like
> accusative/ergative/nominative cases, i'd have gotten very confused.
>
> I say describe them on their own terms, that triggers *simply* emphasize
> the role of a noun or pronoun in the sentence, be it that it's the actor,
> the object, the location, who it's done for, where it's done.
>
> How does that "needlessly complicate" things?
By having something that looks like a case, quacks like a case, but is said
not to be a case. By actively avoiding to use familiar terminology for
familiar things.

> >An English verb (normally) requires a nominative argument; one noun is
> >indicated to be such syntactically. A Tagalog verb, I'm given to
> >understand,
> >requires a trigger; one noun is marked to be such by an adposition. It's
> >highly unclear to me why the one should be a case of case(!) and the
> >other not.
>
> Actually, in Tagalog vebs do not always require a trigger:
>
> Gusto mo ng isda? - You like fish? Neither the pronoun nor the noun are
> triggered.
>
> Don't case languages require cases on verbs? If so, where does the above
> sentence fit?
Not knowing Tagalog, I can't comment on that sentence, and I'm not sure what
you mean with case languages requiring cases on verbs; normally, we expect
case marking to apply to nominal phrases. And what, exactly do you mean
by "case languages"; case is a universal linguistic phenomenon, so presumably
there are no "non-case languages"?

But, perhaps relevantly, the fact thatthere are prefectly well-form English
sentences that lack expressed nominative arguments - imperatives, for
instance - certainly does not undermine English's position as an accusative
language.

                                                         Andreas