Re: THEORY: Use of Ligatures and the Trigger System in Tagalog

On Tuesday, June 22, 2004, at 10:42 , Trebor Jung wrote:

> Chris B. wrote: "Ligatures are basically particles which glue together
> related words (nouns and adjectives, etc)."
>
> I tho't the term 'ligature' was restricted to script, cf. æ (ae-ligature)
> .
> Nice. Just learned something new today :) But, in any case, could French
> liaison be considered a ligature?
No.

Yes, the older, more well-known usage is certainly that of script combos.
Their use is ancient. One finds, e.g. ligatures of AE and AV in Roman
inscriptions.

In syntax the term 'ligature' AFAIK is applied to certain morphemes, which
are also known as 'linkers'*. I quote Trask:
"A morpheme which in certain languages, is required to link certain
specifiers or modifiers to a head noun within a noun phrase. Paluan, for
example, requires a ligature in almost all NPs: _ngikey'l ?ad_ 'that man',
literally 'that Ligature man', while Tolai requires one with adjectives:
_a gege na davai_ 'the crooked stick', literally 'the crooked Ligature
stick'. Austronesian languages show a marked tendency to require a
ligature below some (language specific) cut-off point on a hierarchy of
*bondedness*. The English possessive marker _'s_ may be regarded as a
specialized ligature."

Trask defines bondedness thus:
"The putative degree to which specifiers and modifiers are bound to a head
noun within a noun phrase. The behaviour of *ligatures* in Austronesian
languages suggest the following hierarchy of bondedness, from tightest to
loosest: article > deictic > interrogative > quantifier > adjective >
relative clause."

Notate bene:
- these is not _my_ definitions;
- I am not defending Trask's definitions;
- I am merely stating them to help, hopefully, understand what is meant by
'ligature' in the context of this thread.

Hey, BrScA is going to have ligatures & I never knew that before this
thread  :)

BTW someone in a private mail objected to the abbreviation BrSc. I agree
with him - but perhaps that ought to be  better be for a different thread.

Ray
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