Re: "Tagalog, it's got a Trigger System," She Said (was; QUESTION-New project)

Matt Pearson wrote:

> There's nothing remotely strange or 'grammatically incorrect' about > this
> construction at all. It even has a name among linguists: "Left
> Dislocation"
> English, French, and Italian also have Right Dislocation:
>
>     I love him, that man of mine
>     I've never met him before, that crazy brother of yours
> Somehow, these sound best to me when the right dislocated
> element is introduced by a demonstrative like "that".  It sounds
> strange to say "I've never met him before, your brother", unless
> "your brother" is being added as an afterthought.
This right dislocated afterthought (intentional or no) is a great way to
ratchet up the fuzziness factor in a Japanese utterance:

Sono hito ga imasen, ima (wa) [said in a lower, more level intonation].
has, for me, more of the flavor of:
"He's not here just now." (so perhaps you'd like to call back in a few
minutes) than:
Sono hito ga ima imasen.
"He's not here now." (cope).

When I first moved to Taiwan with a severe case of Japanese on the
brain, I continued to do this for a while, but it doesn't really work.
Sounds more like you're trying to mash Chinese into English syntax.

*Ta bu zai, xianzai.  He's not here now.
for Ta xianzai bu zai.

As for:
> In Mandarin the latter form also occurs colloquially:
> Neige Zhongguoren, ta buneng shuo Yingwen (That Chinese person, s/he > can't
> speak English). It is sometimes emphatic, but occurs in some people's
> speech with great regularity.
It depends on intonation and context, of course, but when I here this
type of sentence, I usually expect an explicit or implicit "so..." on
the way, either in the form of an explanation:

Neige Zhongguoren, ta bu neng shuo Yingwen.
That Chinese person doesn't speak English (so that's why s/he is so
nervous around foreigners).

or in the form of a major rank-out:

Neige Zhongguoren, ta bu neng shuo Yingwen.
That Chinese person doesn't speak English (so who the hell does s/he
think s/he is thinking his/her English is so hot?).

Kou