Re: Trigger language?

In a message dated 1/19/03 7:34:03 PM, hsteoh@QUICKFUR.ATH.CX writes:
[snip]
>Right. So essentially, trigger marking is orthogonal to accusative /
>ergative marking.
>
>This is a very interesting thought. So this means that essentially, I can
>add trigger marking to Ebisedian,
I think you should've added some evil laughter right there :-)

>and still have the same underlying case
>system; I just have to select a "focus" noun and displace its marking onto
>the verb. Perhaps I could even say that it resulted from the focus noun
>incorporating onto the verb, and then detaching later, but leaving behind
>the original case marking.
Certainly!

>Now as to Ebisedian's case system itself, I still cannot find any
>comparable system. (Jesse Bangs claims to have constructed similar systems
>before---I'd be curious to know what they are and how they work.) It is
>definitely *not* an accusative system, and it is no trigger system either.
>I'll be happy if anyone can propose a plausible way to fit it into current
>typological theories. :-)
>
>Basically, there are five noun cases.  They are the originative (org),
>the
>receptive (rcp), the instrumental (instr), the conveyant (cvy), and the
>locative (loc). In an Ebisedian sentence, there is no mandatory case
>(there isn't a subject that must always be present or at least implied).
>The 5 case functions almost act like semantic "slots" on the verb that
>are
>optionally filled in by the appropriate nouns.
>
>For example,
>        "I spoke to the man" translates into "I(org) speak(v) man(rcp)"
>
>But     "I see a man" --> "I(rcp) see(v) man(org)"
>and     "I walk towards the man" --> "I(cvy) walk(v) man(rcp)".
>
>Furthermore,
>        "I shove the man away" --> "I(org) push(v) man(cvy)"
>and     "I propel the man" --> "I(instr) propel(v) man(cvy)".
>
>Active and passive sentences are identical under this system. There is
>no
>direct/indirect object; "I give her a book" --> "I(org) give(v) her(rcp)
>book(cvy)", and "I was given a book by her" --> "I(rcp) give(v) book(cvy)
>her(org)". (As you can see, this is identical to "she gives me a book".)
>
>Furthermore, there is no transitive/intransitive distinction in verbs;
>you
>can randomly drop nouns from a sentence and it would still be consistent
>with the original statement:
>        "I(rcp) give(v) book(cvy) her(org)" = "she gives me a book"
>        "I(rcp) give(v) book(cvy)" = "A book was given to me"
>        "give(v) book(cvy) her(org)" = "she gives a book (to someone)"
>        "give(v) book(cvy)" = "the book is given (to someone)"
>        "I(rcp) give(v)" = "I was given (something)"
>        "give(v)" = "(something) was given"
>
>This system is independent of voice (active=passive), and has no concept
>of verb transitivity. Noun case is also invariant under syntactic
>transformations: the case of "book" is the same in "I gave her the book",
>"the book was given to her", and "I gave the book to her". In fact, these
>three sentences are syntactically identical to each other (except for
>omitted words) in Ebisedian. I can't explain it; there is something deeply
>symmetric in this system that just fascinates me to no end.
This system is very much like Kar Marinam's, with some exceptions. The cases
are different (didn't you know it). There are about 16, but the relevant ones
here would be Agent, Patient, Focus, and Instrumental. These are based on
what I read and understood of Rick Morneau's _Lexical Semantics_. The Senser
case is semantically a subset of Patient, used with certain verbs. There is
also an Agent-Patient case, for when those two roles are held by the same
noun. Like Ebisedian, nouns can be added and dropped freely (though unlike E,
there must be at least one noun phrase in any sentence), and there is no
concept of transitivity or intransitivity, or passivity or active-ity.
Instead of voices, a noun can be emphasized with the trigger system, and/or
by dropping out other nouns and leaving it alone in a sentence. I think I
accidentally wrote that KM was split-S in another post; I meant it was
fluid-S.

Unlike your description of E, there are definite notions of subject, DO, and
IO in KM. These are based on the position of the word in a sentence. Word
order varies (not freely, but according to verb type and other things), but
the most basic order is OVS. That means that the last noun in a sentence,
whatever the case, is the subject, the penultimate is the DO, and the
antepenultimate is the IO. Which noun ends up in which slot is based on which
case they have (the order is more or less Other-Focus-Patient-Senser-Agent),
but since any combination of cases can be present or absent, the actual case
of a subject, DO, or IO could be anything. What is the point of calling
things S, DO, and IO then? Well, verb agreement is based on these notions,
nouns are promoted to subject position for several purposes (not having
anything to do with emphasis or voice), and reflexive pronouns differ
depending on which position the noun they refer to is in.

>How would you describe such an odd system? :-)
Perhaps 'locational' - for the case system that is, not all the other things
that go with it! Rather than focusing on who performed an action and who felt
it, E's cases are, as I am seeing it, based on where they start and stop, and
what has its location changed (the conveyant). If you imagine a hierarchical
classification, with several broad categories at the top, 'locational' could
be one, along with a system where nouns are divided up as mentioned above,
i.e., according to who performed an action and who felt it (e.g., Kar
Marinam, active languages), and a system where syntactic positions determine
case (this could include nom-acc and ergative as well as tripartite langs).
Of course the lines are a bit blurry here and there....

I have a question. You gave the example: "I see a man" --> "I(rcp) see(v)
man(org)"
KM would do this "I(senser) see man(focus)"
(Senser, remember, might as well be Patient. The word order would be reversed
too, but never mind that.)
To say "He shows me the man," I would add "He(agent)"
How would E render this, since the originative is already used? I imagine
you'd have to use a different verb, or add in another sentence or "because
of..." or something. The instrumental is somewhat tempting, but if we
happened to add "with the binoculars"="binoculars(inst)", that would already
be used too.

>T
>
>--
>If it ain't broke, hit it again. -- Foon
Josh Roth

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