Re: Tagalog & trigger idea: I'd like comments. :)

On Nov 16, 2004, at 9:32 PM, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> Hehe, be prepared for a misfit. :-)
yeah - i never expected a perfect fit, i just thought i'd see if i
could describe any of it as if it were a natlang - no intent to fit it
into boxes that don't work.

> There are only 3 core cases. Well, maybe 4, if you consider the
> unmarked absolutive a case (it is used only in stative constructions
> and zero-valent "verb" constructions). Or 5, if you count the
> vocative, but the vocative is weird in the sense that you can tack on
> one of the 3 core cases to it and turn it into an NP simultaneously
> vocative and originative, for example.
i'd definitely consider an unmarked one a case.
[...]
> Yeah, the cases are semantically rather than syntactically selected.
> However, it doesn't quite use the agent/patient paradigm, but instead
> a source/destination/transferee paradigm.
well, the agent/patient paradigm is sort of mappable to
source/transferee, with destination being the goal, in theta-role
terms, but all these things are pretty mushy and imprecise, relatively
speaking, so a mapping doesn't say much...

>> i've been told this is known from one australian language, so it's
>> not out of the realm of natlangs.
>
> Cool, do you know which one?
no, sadly.  i've heard it as rumour, more or less, but i could ask
around - none of my professors specialize in austronesian language, so
...

>> my remark about a topic-comment structure is an attempt to explain in
>> natlang-terms the difference in implied object for "kissed" in the
>> sentence below.
>
> Hmm. I think the difficulty stems from trying to map Tatari Faran
> cases on the traditional subject/object paradigm. If one is willing to
> stretch the definition of "object" to cover all verb arguments (i.e.
> everything following the verb) and call the fronted NP the "subject",
> then the difficulty disappears: the "subject" of the 1st clause is the
> fronted NP, which is identical to the "subject" of the 2nd clause, and
> hence it is elided. A simple case of identical subject deletion. The
> case marker is retained, however, because otherwise it becomes
> ambiguous which semantic role the "subject" plays in the 2nd clause.
>
> (My explanation for the retention of the case marker in the 2nd clause
> is that historically, the case markers were pronouns.)
no, subject/object has nothing to do with this, i don't think: the
pivot need not be subject or object, per se, but need be in the less
marked syntactic case - usually nominative, but consider dyirbal, which
is syntactically ergative and therefore allows:

1) the man kissed the woman and left.

to mean only that the woman left - "woman" would be have the same
syntactic case as object of kiss and subject of leave, therefore it
pivots.

with TF, though, i was thinking that perhaps whichever NP is fronted is
a topic, and the rest of the sentence is a comment, so you can pivot
around the topic, as it were, by something like absent pronominals.

actually, what you say about ambiguity of theta-role for elided
"subjects" gets me thinking - perhaps, in a natlang paradigm, one could
say that TF has voice, but it's never phonologically distinct.

again, this is all an attempt to describe TF as a natlang just to see
if i can get something approximate.  not all my explanations fit
perfectly, thank goodness :-)

kit

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