Re: Why Triggers?

En réponse à Vasiliy Chernov <bc_@...>:

>
> I think it's easier to understand if you rewrite your examples as
> follows:
>
> 1) I {am the one who gives} a bone to the dog.
> 2) The dog {is the being who the bone is given to} by me.
> 3) The bone {is what is given} by me to the dog.
>
> Also various things like e. g.:
>
> 4) The house {is the place where the act of giving is in progress} of
> the bone to the dog by me.
>
> What stands in brackets conveys the litteral meaning of the respective
> form of the verb.
>
> If I understand it correctly, all sentences in a trigger language must
> use a form like the above.
>
Indeed. One conlanger (who was it already? it was a discussion that happened
more than two years ago IIRC) had the interesting theory that in trigger
languages all sentences were nominal with an understated 'is', and that the
verb was in fact a derived noun, which was equated to the trigger, like in the
examples you give. Interestingly, this idea is very good to explain trigger
languages (though one can argue whether trigger languages are really verbless).
At least, it fitted the facts quite well (from what I know of Tagalog, the
subject in nominal sentences is marked like the trigger in verbal ones, thus
the idea that trigger sentences are essentially nominal fits quite well).

Note that this idea wouldn't fit in my Itakian, though it's a trigger language.
In this language, sentences using the trigger have quite a different structure
from nominal sentences (the trigger and the subject are not marked the same,
and that's only the smallest difference).

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

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