Re: Triggeriness ...

Staving Javier BF:
> >It occurs to me that it would be possible for a distinction to exist
>within
> >trigger languages, between ones where "Trigger role 1" = "subject",
> >"Trigger role 2" = "object", and those where "Trigger role 1" =
> >"Intransitive subject or transitive object", "Trigger role 2"
>= "Transitive
> >subject". So, while it would not be useful to classify trigger languages
>as
> >Nom/Acc or Erg/Abs as a primary classification, there may be scope for a
> >secondary classification as "Nom/Acc-like trigger language" or
> >"Erg/Abs-like trigger language".
>
>You mean, if in trigger languages there was a
>favoured voice that set a default role to the
>trigger as agent or as object? As far as I know,
>in Tagalog there's no favoured assignation
>of role to the trigger (which in itself is
>semantically 'meaningless', since by itself
>doesn't correlate to any semantic role neither
>in absolute terms nor by default), so you
>cannot establish a parallel subdivision to
>the hierarchical organization of core cases in
>languages where verbs accept valencies higher
>than 1. Note that both English and Basque
>feature plurivalent verbs while Tagalog
>doesn't, and it is in the hierarchization of
>the cases in plurivalent verbal schemes where
>the difference between the accusative and
>ergative types arises, since in the monovalent
>intransitive scheme (which is the only one
>used in Tagalog) the meaning of the single
>'subject' core case has, by necessity, to be
>determined by the semantics of the verb.
>E.g. in English the subject of intransitives
>expresses different semantic roles according
>to which verb it is the subject of (and sometimes
>according to the animacy level of the subject
>too): "I fall", "I read", "It reads (as ...)".
I wasn't implying a heirachy of roles - simply that the range of roles
available might be more "Nom/Acc-like" in some languages and more
"Erg/Abs-like" in others.

Pete