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

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)...

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