Re: Trigger language?
| From: | Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, January 22, 2003, 21:30 |
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En réponse à "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...>:
> >
> > Aren't subject or subject universal terms for any language?
>
Sorry not to reply directly, but I seem to have erased the original post by
mistake :(( .
"subject" and "object" aren't language universals. They are frequent, but with
many languages (trigger languages, but quite a few simply ergative languages
too) they are just impossible to define properly. What is universal are
the "topic" and "comment", with the topic often (but far from always)
corresponding to the subject in languages where it can be defined.
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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