Re: trigger langs: More than one verb in a sentence?

[Note to Barry: You should fix it so that when someone hits "reply"
it goes to CONLANG and not directly to you.]

Barry wrote:

<<(and no, this isn't supposed to work EXACTLY like Tagalog)>>

Dang.   Why couldn't this question have come up in the winter
when I was doing a paper on Austronesian languages "of the
Philippine type" (as they're referred to in the [old] literature)?

<<"I used the book to teach him".>>

My most likely for guess for that sentence would be that you
wouldn't have two verbs, but one verb and a preposition.   So,
"I taught him *by a book*/*with a book*".

The place where two verbs pop up are in sentences like, "I want
him to see you."   In a language like...oh, dang.   Forgotten it already.
It's not Tagalog.   Starts with an "s", maybe...?   Anyway, in a closely
related language, a "pag-" complement is used, so called because the
prefix "pag-" is attached to the second verb.   It reminds me, in a way,
of "-ing" in English.   So with the sentence I suggested, it might be
something like...

Want-Subj. I-Trig. pag-see-Subj. he-Trig. you-Obj.

Something like that.   The "pag-" complement is itself an argument
of the verb and can itself be focused, with messy results.   And you
can even have "pag-" complements within "pag-" complements, and
Lord help you if you want to ask a WH-question with them.   I wish
I could give more specific details, but the book is no longer with me.
My paper is, though.   I'll look through it tomorrow.   The dude to
ask would be Matthew Pearson, whose papers I used as a reference
in the paper I wrote.

-David
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"sunly eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."
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