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

Steg Belsky wrote:

> Actually, i just realized...
> Rokbeigalmki works exactly the same way!
>
> Because of the way verbs are formed/conjugated, when you say:
> _sha:hhya ozu-mwe_
> to mean "Shaya went" what you're literally saying is:
> "Shaya, he went"
>
> ...weird....
>
So does Teonaht, actually.  Teonaht's harsh object-initial syntax is often
rebelled againstby the self-same construction.  Whereas ordinarily you would
write: "the book Sarah bought,"
many speakers say (and write): Sarah the book she bought, where it is
obligatory to leave
the pronoun in.  The verb doesn't like to be so far separated from a
subject.  Thus Teonaht
reveals an imbedded SOV structure in its imposed OSV structure.   That's all
part of a huge
chapter I have on Syntax which I haven't mounted.  It's in my paper copy.
I'm about a
third of the way through Verbs.  I mean it's on my browser, and after I get
the verbs done
I have to type in the stuff on Copula.  But what holds this huge description
together is the
unmounted section on Syntax.  I have to work on research this summer, and
I'm terrified that
my obsessions about Teonaht and getting it up for y'all in some kind of
complete fashion will
totally take over.  Oh, and for those who have checked, the page on pronouns
is drastically
incomplete.  I've got the main pronouns up, but absolutely nothing about
demonstrative or
interrogative pronouns.  Rather than do that to the verbs (put it up
partially), I'm waiting till
it's all done.

I really liked the observations about yabba and yamma in Arabic.  Some kind
of relativism
in Teonaht is needed, perhaps.  Borrow a little here, a little there.  It's
such a bricolage!

Sallyhttp://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/teonaht.html

>