Re: Q's abuot trigger again

En réponse à Carsten Becker :


>Oh yes! Thank you very much. Expressed in a more grammatical way, I mean a
>morpheme breakdown, the sentences are:
>
>I-TRIG write-AGT [an essay]-PAT [my pen]-INST
>[an essay]-TRIG write-PAT I-AGT [my pen]-INST
>[my pen]-TRIG write-INST I-AGT [an essay]-PAT  => why is "to write" the
>instrument?
The problem here is that you forget that the -INST on the verb and the 
-INST on a noun have a different nature. The latter indicates the function 
of the noun it's tagged on, the former the function *of the trigger*.


>OK, I think that is answered. It doesn't have to be marked. But I still
>don't understand why you mark "to write" as an instrument.
You don't. You do head-marking, i.e. indicate the function of the trigger 
by an affix on the verb (just like languages with a construct state mark 
possessive constructions on the possessed word rather than the possessor). 
But other people have been already correctly explaining that :) .

> > How are sentences done where there are more than one verb [...]?
>In sentences like "I see him eating." you've got two verbs. But you could
>also say "I see him how he eats" or "I see him, who eats". The problem
>should be solved when you do it this way, wouldn't it?
It depends on the language. I don't know about Tagalog, but in my Itakian 
(a trigger language), all subclauses are actually nominal phrases (their 
verb is nominalised). So you only ever have a single conjugated verb per 
sentence :) .

Christophe Grandsire.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.