Re: Why Triggers?

CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU writes:
>1.) I (unmarked) give (nominative/ergative/agent) the dog
>(dative/benefactive) a bone (acc./absol.)
>2.) I (nom/erg/agt) give (dat/ben) the dog (unmarked) a bone (acc./absol.)
>3.) I (nom/erg/agt) give (acc./absol.) the dog (dat./ben.) a bone
>(unmarked)
>
>[The cases depend on what distinction the language makes, I guess; or
>does it
>matter?]
>
>    So what on Earth is the point?  What would the difference be in these
>three sentences?  Is it focus?  I mean, if the cases aren't changed at
>all,
>just where the marking is...why?  Am I missing something about trigger
>languages here?  Does any one have a trigger language in which you could
>illustrate the above example?  I just don't understand, semantically, what
>the difference is, and why such a distinction would be.  Can anyone help
>me
>out?
Yes, it's focus. Tagalog has several: actor, object, benefactive,
locative, instrumental (and there's a couple more i cant remember). Some
of these focuses have different affixes/infixes that are used (which if
you look at them are difficult to tell when to use which with what verb
(like um and mag triggers).

IMHO, it's easier to think of it in terms of focus, i may be off here, but
that's how i helped myself learn a little tagalog (well, in class).

Anyway with trigger languages, from what i've seen, the trigger affix is
located on the verb. It's something like noun cases. Usually, there's a
marker which marks the focus, and another which marks what isnt being
focused on.

So, lets' take a made up verb, makati and say it means "to hit". We have
the boy, tare, and we have the man , seng, and we also have a hammer,
gaso. We have two markers, one that marks the focus: ha, and one that
marks what is not focused: di.

So, we have:

Man - seng
boy - tare
hammer - gaso
verb - makati
focus marker - ha
non focus marker - di

In sentences of this type, the focus generally follows the verb
immediately (i am not too sure with instrumental, to me it's better to
have the one doing the action follow, even if it is not the focus). Then
comes the object, and then the indirect object.

- Actor focus: this is when we want the doer of the action to be
highlighted in the sentence. The ending for this will be -nang:

Makatinang ha seng di tare wa di gaso - Lit: Hits[act. foc] [foc] man [non
foc] boy with [non foc] hammer

So, that sentence would mean: The man hit the boy with the hammer. "Wa"
(with) helps clarify that the hammer wasnt hit with the boy :).

- Object focus: this is used when we want the reciever of the action to be
highlighted: The ending will be -say:

Makatisay ha tare di seng wa di gaso - lit: Hits[obj foc] [foc] boy [non
foc] man with [non foc] hammer.

The above means: The boy was hit by the man with the hammer. Supposedly in
Tagalog (according to my books), the object focus works something like
passive voice.

- Instrumental: This is used when we want the object used in the action to
be focused on. The ending will be -bas:

Makatibas di seng ha gaso di tare - lit: Hit[instrumental foc] [non foc]
man [foc hammer] [non foc] boy [non foc] man.

In this case it means: The man used the hammer to hit the boy.
I am not quite sure, but i think it's preferred to have the one doing the
action follow the verb in this case, even though it is not the focus. I
dont think word order is too important here because the markers show what
is the focus, no matter where it is in the sentence.

- Benefactive: this is used when the the subject of the sentence has an
action performed for him. The ending will be: -dat:

Makatidat ha seng di tare wa di gaso - Hit[bene foc] [foc] man [non foc]
boy with [non foc] hammer.

The above means: The boy was hit with the hammer for the man. It looks
odd, but the man is still marked as being the focus.


I may be wrong about how to go about constructing trigger language
sentences, but from what i've read about Tagalog (which i admit isnt very
extensive) the above is how i've made sense of the system.  IMHO, trigger
systems seem to show that in languages that use them, that the verb is the
important part. Of course, take it all with a grain of salt ;).


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