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Trigger languages

From:Mat McVeagh <matmcv@...>
Date:Saturday, November 2, 2002, 3:57
>From: "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...> > >On Fri, Nov 01, 2002 at 06:16:51AM +0000, Mat McVeagh wrote: > > >From: Amanda Babcock <langs@...> > > > I started a totally noun-based trigger language > > >last year; > > > > OK what is a trigger language? H.S. Teoh also mentioned that phrase. >[snip] > >Here's an introduction to trigger languages, courtesy of Pablo Flores, >one of our list members: > >http://www.angelfire.com/ego/pdf/ng/lng/how/how_wordclasses.html > >(Scroll down to the bottom of the page, the last section talks about >trigger languages.) > > >T
Amazing! I would never have thought of it myself. I am going to have to think about this. Two things occur straight away. 1) In a way, having the trigger morpheme on the noun and the affix on the verb is like a 'deferred' case. That the case is still applicable to the noun, it's just that the marker for what the case is is not on the noun itself. It's like having a flag, which you have been told to associate with a certain meaning. Apply the meaning where you see the flag. (And something about this is it's technically resundant when you can put the case marker directly on the noun.) 2) In what way does the verb become nominalised? Surely something is only of the same part of speech / word class as another if it has the same sort of morphology and syntax. Thus, to be considered nouns trigger-language verbs would have to be structured like nouns and relate to other words in the sentence like nouns. Are these verbs like that in these languages? If not, if they have their own, different morphology and syntax, maybe they're... verbs. They might not have voice, but do they have tenses? Can these verbs that have the affix added be made to refer to either the present or past, for instance? Mat _________________________________________________________________ Get a speedy connection with MSN Broadband. Join now! http://resourcecenter.msn.com/access/plans/freeactivation.asp