Re: Saalangal stuff

Barry Garcia <barry_garcia@...> wrote:

> Since Kristian clarified trigger systems for me more, i now understand
> better how they work in Saalangal :). (Thanks again, Kristian).
It seems that trigger systems are a sort of "cross-conworld areal
feature"
of the western Pacific as ISTR that Saalangal is spoken on a (fictional)
group of islands that lie somewhere near the Philippines and where
Kristian's Boreanesia would be.

> In this email, i'm going to touch on the system a bit, and explain the
> difference in uses between the agent and patient triggers (I've been
> talking about this with Christophe offlist).
>
> In Saalangal, it is considered impolite to focus on the actions of
> another. Hence, when talking about what someone else did, the patient
> trigger is used. However, if the other person is a subordinate, or just
> someone you dont care much about :), the agent trigger is used when
> talking about what they've done.
And I guess that they use the agent trigger a lot in courts of law
when referring to the actions of the defendant.

Jörg.
.

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