Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

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

From:Roger Mills <rfmilly@...>
Date:Thursday, October 14, 2004, 16:05
Paul Bennett wrote:
> On Thu, 14 Oct 2004 12:00:08 +0000, caeruleancentaur > <caeruleancentaur@...> wrote: > > > P.S. What is this "trigger" that everyone is talking about? I > > haven't been able to get the meaning from the messages. > > Others will be able to describe it better than I, but I have a rough > notion, based purely on osmosis from the list. > > Imagine a language with one particular case marker, which can have a > variety of meanings (sometimes Dative, sometimes Accusative, and so on). > > Then, there are a class of verb affixes, which define for a given sentence > which meaning that case marker has "right now". > > That, as I understand it, is the essence of triggerism, though I suspect > some would take umbrage at the term "case".
<umbrage> I think it's more a marker that says "this constituent is in focus [and is the "subject" of the verb]".</umbrage> Unless I'm mistaken, it's the same marker (ang) at all times (except pers. names and pronouns take a different marker/form). The non-focussed/oblique arguments in the sentence take a different marker, usually _ng_, or prepositions. From my limited knowledge of Tagalog (with bastardized vocab.): Agent focus (verb infix -um-): s/um/ulat ang autor [ng libro]... "The author wrote a book...." write/AF LINK author OBL book Patient/Object focus: (infix -in-): s/in/ulat ang libro [ng autor]... Technically this = an Engl. passive, "The book was written by the author", but in a discourse it would not necessarily be translated that way, if the "book" was the subject of the discussion. There's also morphology (prefixes/suffixes) to indicate "Benefactive focus" and "Instrument focus", schematically-- BF-sulat ang anak [book, author] "written-for child..." IF-sulat ang typewriter [book, author, etc.] "written-with typewriter" Here, Engl. versions would probably use a cleft sentence "It was for the child (~with a typewriter) that the author wrote the book." Frankly, I'm not sure whether "trigger" refers to the verbal affix, or to the _ang_. As I've said before, "trigger" is a term I'd never heard w.r.t. these languages, until encountering it here. Barry Garcia recently sent me these links: http://www.seasite.niu.edu/Indonesian http://www.seasite.niu.edu/Tagalog The Indonesian one is quite poor; the Tagalog is somewhat better, though I haven't read it fully. Perhaps we should all enrol in a Tag. or Bisayan course........:-))))) (Charlie:)
> > And a rambling: It sure would be nice if there were a "save" function > > that could be used before sending! Hit the wrong key before sending > > & the message is gone & must be retyped.
I just looked at my Yahoo mail account-- like IE and msn.com, there is a "Draft" folder which sort-of allows you to save/review before sending. But it's a mixed blessing (in IE/msn, never used it in Yahoo); when you want to send, you have to start a new, blank message, then cut/paste your text out of Drafts into the new message, (then edit/rewrite whatever), then send. I guess a simple "Hold" setting is not possible?? (And for some of us klutzes, there should be a "STOP, I didn't mean to hit the send button!!") (Paul B:)
> If you don't like your email program, get a new one. There are myriad > alternatives. Personally, I use M2, the mail client that is part of the > Opera web browser http://www.opera.com/
Is it free? How would adopting Opera mesh with my current system-- along with Verizon DSL, I get msn.com email for free. Generally it displays Unicode OK, but I have yet to figure out how to send in Unicode (as if I wanted to)...

Reply

Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...>