Re: Triggers and Administrivia (was Re: Fwd: Re: One And A Half)

On Thu, 14 Oct 2004 21:54:48 -0700, B. Garcia <madyaas@...> wrote:

>On Thu, 14 Oct 2004 10:35:33 -0400, Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...>
wrote:
>
>> That, as I understand it, is the essence of triggerism, though I suspect
>> some would take umbrage at the term "case".
>
>
>I find it's a lot easier to explain it to non-linguistic minded people
>by simply saying: The verb focuses on a particular part of the
>sentence. This particular part is marked with a particle.  The part of
>the sentence which is the focus of the verb can be the one who did the
>action, the one who received it, the thing used to do the action, the
>place it happened, or who the action was done for.
>
>Then they go "Oh, I see, so if I want to emphasize the instrument, I
>use this affix?" or "If i'm talking about myself, I can use this
>one?".
Thank you so much. This is the best explanation I've seen for triggers. I
didn't get a lot of the other ones, or just got them slightly, like a vague
mathematical concept. It's "Ah! Now it makes sense!"

Heh. And I thought of myself as an amateur linguist. Apparently too amateur.

Buenos días,

Ben