Re: Another new project and trigger languages

En réponse à Christopher Wright <faceloran@...>:

> But I'm not sure that I understand triggers. Could someone help me
> with
> an idiot's explanation? I'll provide the idiot if you provide the
> explanation :))
Trigger systems are easily explained as *focus* systems. In a trigger system, a
noun phrase is always chosen to have the focus (corresponding to a "as for" in
English). But it is marked only for that, i.e. for having the focus. Its
grammatical function in the sentence is not marked on that noun phrase, but on
the verb instead. Other noun phrases are marked for their function normally. In
a way, the explanation once given by Kristian Jensen is a good one: you must
think of a sentence in a trigger language to have an understated "is", and the
verb is actually a nominal form, like an agent, patient, etc... form. So in a
trigger language a sentence like "John loves Mary" can be rendered as:
- John-trigger love-agent Mary-patient, or "John (is) the lover of Mary"
(or "as for John, he is the lover of Mary"),
- Mary-trigger love-patient John-agent, or "Mary (is) the loved one by John",
depending on who you want to focus on.
The peculiarity of this system compared to passive voices and such is that it's
completely symmetric, *any* function can become the trigger if there is a
verbal form for it.

>
> The name of this project is tentatively Leyran /lejran/ (and I realize
> that I don't know how to mark stress in SAMPA!).
Pure X-SAMPA uses ["] for the primary stress and [%] for secondary stress. On
this list we often use an adapted version using ['] for primary stress and [,]
for secondary stress, looking more like the IPA form of those marks and less
intrusive when reading.

 I don't think I've
> heard
> of another language by a similar name, but if I'm treading on someone
> else's territory, I'll gladly change.
Don't worry about me, I don't have any language whose name begins in [l]
anyway ;)))) .

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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