Re: Trigger systems

Hi all,

Here's what Pablo Flores has to say on the subject of trigger systems:

[begin quote]

The word order classification of which I've been talking presume
that there will be a subject, a verb and an object, and that they'll be
differentiable by the word order itself and/or by case marks.

There's a different system, which is used in Malagasy and most Filipino languages,
like Tagalog, in which subject, object and other modifiers may appear
in different orders, and they're not marked in traditional ways. It's called a trigger system.

The trigger is the part of the sentence over which emphasis is placed (I'd call it
the topic, but I'm not so sure about this). The trigger can be the 'subject'
of the sentence according to our view, but also the object, or a location, or the
verb (predicate) itself. The trigger is marked as such (by a particle
or inflection, or by word order), but you only state 'this is the trigger', not
its function. Other parts of the sentence are marked differently. Then
the verb is marked to show the relationship of the action to the trigger. The
'case' of the trigger is not marked on the trigger but on the verb.

In order to illustrate this, I'll just transcribe part of a post to the
Conlang list,
by Kristian Jensen, who was kind enough to repost it when I asked for an
explanation about the subject. Here it is:
In Tagalog, there are only three markings for case: the Trigger, the
Genitive, and the Oblique. This is exactly like most (if not all)
the Philippine languages. Furthermore, much like many Western
Austronesian languages, there are a large inventory of affixes used
to create different nuances in the verbs, noteably the verbal
trigger. When the trigger plays the role of the agent, an
agent-trigger affix is used with the verb. When the trigger plays
the role of the patient, a patient-trigger affix is used with the
verb. When the trigger plays the role of location, then a
location-trigger affix is used with the verb. Etc. etc., etc...

A particularly noteworthy feature of this system is that
non-triggered (unfocused) core arguments are marked as the genitive.
As a result, "I am buying" and "the buying (of something) of mine"
(or "my buying (of something)") have identical structures. Verbal
constructions appear to be identical with nominal constructions by
the use genitives. One theory has it that the verbal affixes are
actually nominalizing affixes. Examples always help. Take the
sentence "The man cut some wood in the forest". With three different
arguments, three trigger forms are possible. Below are parsing
examples of the way a Filipino language would translate the
sentence. I have refrained from using real language examples at this
point hoping that it would be easier to understand how the
_grammatical system_ (_not_ the morphological system) works.:

AGENT Trigger:
AT-cut           GEN-wood   OBL-forest    TRG-man
"[cutting-agent]  [of wood]  [at forest] = [man]"
lit.: "The wood's cutter in the forest is the man"
transl.: "The man, he cut some wood in the forest"

PATIENT Trigger:
PT-cut             GEN-man   OBL-forest    TRG-wood
"[cutting-patient]  [of man]  [at forest] = [wood]"
lit.: "The man's cutting-patient in the forest is the wood"
transl.: "The wood, the man cut it in the forest"

LOCATION Trigger:
LT-cut              GEN-man   GEN-wood    TRG-forest
"[cutting-location]  [of man]  [of wood] = [forest]"
lit.:"The man's cutting-location of wood is the forest"
transl.: "The forest, the man cut some wood in it"

Note how I have nominalized the verbs in the transcription. Thus,
the verb for cutting has been nominalized as an agent, a patient, or
a location depending on what role the trigger plays. There are other
verbal trigger forms too including benefactor and instrument. My own
theory is that trigger languages only have one core argument. Such
being the case, trigger languages resort to nominalizing verbs. This
might also explain why passive constructions do not exist in trigger
languages since the valency of the verb is not changed (cannot
change) with different triggers.

In a language using a trigger system, it's not useful to talk about subject,
object, etc., and word order may greatly vary. In Tagalog, the predicate (the
nominalized verb) is the first word in the sentence, and the trigger is last. Other
languages might be different. It's equally useless to talk of transitive
or intransitive verbs, or of voice (active, passive, middle).

[end of quote]]

I've just started a Yoruba-sounding Swahili-grammar-immitating
African-language-type conlang. I'll use a trigger system, open syllables, a
classificatory noun system with prefixes, labiovelar stops (/gb/, /kp/), tones
(high and low), subject and object verb-marking with prefixes; tones will be
mostly used grammaticaly, not lexically. That's what I've got down so far; any
ideas?

Could someone please describe the grammar of Yoruba to me; nothing on the Web, so
I'm very puzzled. I know about Swahili (of course! :)) and a bit about African
languages in general (very little in fact), so I'd like some assistance here!

--Robert