This article provides a grammar sketch of the Basque language, the language of the Basque people of the Basque Country or Euskal Herria, which borders the Bay of Biscay in western Europe. There also exists (not yet) a brief typological overview of the language that summarizes the language's most salient features of general typological interest in more technical terms. See the separate article for a fuller description of the Basque verb link.
(While this article is in a draft stage in my private area, the Miskito grammar article will appear in places as a template for unwritten sections.)
Sounds
editPhonemes
edit| Short | Long | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front | Back | Front | Back | |
| High | i | u | î | û |
| Low | a | â | ||
- The exact status of vowel length is not clear; long vowels are not consistently indicated in Miskito writing.
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labiovelar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Voiceless Plosives | p | t | k | |||
| Voiced Plosives | b | d | ||||
| Fricatives | s | (h) | ||||
| Nasals | m | n | ng [ŋ] | |||
| Liquids | l, r | |||||
| Semivowels | y | w |
Suprasegmentals
editWord stress is generally on the first syllable of each word.
| H has been included on the above consonant chart out of deference to the orthography and previous descriptions, but may in fact represent a suprasegmental feature rather than a consonantal phoneme (except in loanwords such as heven 'heaven'). Occurrence of h is restricted to the stressed syllable in a word, and its realization consists of the devoicing of adjacent vowel and consonant phonemes within that syllable. In spelling it is customary to place the letter h at the end of the syllable so affected. |
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Phonotactics
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Syllables may have up to two consonants preceding the vowel nucleus, and two following it. This may be represented by the formula (C)(C)V(C)(C). Examples of monosyllabic words: |
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Within words of more than one syllable interior clusters may therefore contain more than two consonants (rarely more than three), but in such cases there is generally a morpheme boundary involved: |
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Note that simplification of underlying consonant clusters in verb forms take place, with stem consonants disappear disappearing when certain suffixes are added to verb stems of certain phonological shapes: |
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Noun phrase
editThe Basque noun phrase is structured in a way quite different from noun phrases in most Indo-European languages.
Articles, determiners and quantifiers
editDeterminers and quantifiers play a central role in Basque noun phrase structure. The key elements we call "articles" are best treated as a subset of the determiners.
| Some determiners | Some quantifiers | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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etc. |
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The "articles" take the form of suffixes. See the following description of the uses of their use. The forms forms -a, -ak, -ok correspond to the absolutive case; in other cases, -a(r)-, -e-, -o- are used, followed by a case suffix. The negative-polar article, often called the partitive suffix, does not combine with case suffixes. When glossing examples below, these elements are referred to collectively as ART. |
The demonstrative stems, like the articles and unlike other nominal elements, show irregular allomorphy between singular and plural and, in the singular, between the absolutive (hau, hori, hura) and other cases (hon-, horr-, har-). The same forms function either as demonstrative determiners and demonstrative pronouns. | |||
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The articles -a, -ak, -ok, -(r)ik, demonstratives hau, hori, hura and some of the quantifiers follow the noun they determine or quantify. |
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Other determiners and quantifiers, including beste 'other', the interrogatives and numerals above one or two (depending on dialect) precede the noun. |
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A normal noun phrase with a common noun as head must contain either one (and only one) determiner or one (and only one) quantifier, and not both, as in the above examples. However, the numerals may co-occur with a determiner. |
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The items beste 'other' and guzti 'all' do not 'fill' the determiner or quantifier position and therefore require an article, other determiner or quantifier. |
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The article -a, -ak acts as the default determiner, obligatory with a common noun in the absence of another determiner or quantifer (even in citation forms, in popular usage). |
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The article -(r)ik, traditionally called a partitive suffix (cf. French de), replaces -a, -ak in negative polar contexts, especially with indefinite noun phrases in negative sentences. It is never treated as plural. |
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A noun phrase with a proper noun or a pronoun as head need not and usually does not contain either a determiner or a quantifier. |
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The absence of any determiner or quantifier from a common-noun-head noun phrase is only possible in certain specific contexts, e.g. in certain types of predicate or in some adverbial expressions. |
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Genitive and adjectival constructions
edit| A genitive noun phrase precedes its possessed head to express possessive or similar relationships. |
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The possessed noun phrase retains the same determination and quantification features described above for noun phrases generally. |
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The head noun of a possessed noun phrase may be omitted. In this case the article or other determiner is still retained, now attached to the genitival element. |
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Noun phrases are turned into genitives by the addition of one of two genitive case suffixes, -(r)en or -ko (see below on declension suffixes). |
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The genitive formation of personal pronouns is irregular. |
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-Ko (or -go) can be suffixed to a wide range of other words and phrases, many of them adverbial in function, to form adjectival expressions which behave syntactically just as genitive phrases do. |
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Adjectives
edit| Lexical adjectives, in contrast to adjectival expressions (see above), immediately follow the head noun but precede any article, determiner or quantifier. |
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When adjectives, adjectivals or genitives are used as predicates, they usually take the article (singular -a, plural -ak). |
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Number
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Basque has two numbers, singular (unmarked) and plural. Plural markers occur in two parts of Basque grammar: in some pronouns, determiners and quantifiers, and in participant indexes on verbs (see Basque verb link here). Nouns and adjectives are strictly invariable for number: for example, etxe means indifferently 'house' or 'houses'. Since, however, a noun such as etxe rarely occurs alone and normally appears within a noun phrase containing either a determiner or a quantifier, its number is likely to be indicated by this element: |
etxea 'house' |
(singular because of -a) |
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etxeak 'houses' |
(plural because of -ak) | |
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etxe hau 'this house' |
(singular because of hau) | |
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etxe hauek 'these houses' |
(plural because of hauek) | |
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etxe bat 'one/a house' |
(singular because of bat) | |
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etxe batzuk 'some houses' |
(plural because of batzuk) | |
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hiru etxe 'three houses' |
(plural because of hiru) | |
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Most determiners, including the article, have distinct singular and plural forms (the latter ending in a k in the absolutive case). Most quantifiers (except bat versus batzuk) do not show such morphological variation, but many (including the numerals, of course) have intrinsically singular or plural lexical meanings. |
Singular:
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Plural:
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Sometimes the grammatical number of a noun phrase can only be deduced from general context or from verbal indexing, |
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or from the lexical or semantic noun type: |
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Pronouns and adverbs
editPersonal pronouons
editThe personal pronouns differentiate three persons and two numbers. Zu must once have been the second person plural pronoun but is now only found as the polite singular, having partially displaced the original second person singular pronoun hi which is now a markedly familiar form of address. Zuek represents a re-pluralised derivative of zu and is now the only second person plural pronoun.
| Reconstructed proto-system | Attested present-day system |
|---|---|
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hi 'you (singular)' zu 'you (plural)' |
hi 'you (familiar singular)' zu 'you (polite singular)' zu-ek 'you (plural)' |
The function of third person personal pronouns may be filled by any of the demonstrative pronouns or their emphatic counterparts in ber-.
| Singular | Plural |
|---|---|
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ni 'I/me' hi 'you (very familiar)' zu 'you (polite or neutral)' hau, hori, hura, bera 'he/him, she/her, it' |
gu 'we/us' zuek 'you' hauek, horiek, haiek, bera(ie)k, eurak... 'they/them' |
Besides these ordinary personal pronouns there are emphatic (or intensive) ones, whose forms vary considerably between dialects, e.g. for the first person singular: neu, nerau, neroni or nihaur.
Demonstrative pronouns
editThe demonstrative determiners (see above) may be used pronominally (as indeed can all the determiners except for the articles). There are also emphatic (intensive) demonstrative pronouns beginning with ber-.
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| Ordinary |
hau 'this' hori 'that (near hearer, general)' hura 'that (in the distance, not present)' |
hauek 'these' horiek 'those (near hearer, general)' haiek 'those (in the distance, not present)' |
| Intensive |
berau 'this' berori 'that (near hearer, general)' bera 'that (in the distance, not present)' |
berauek 'these' beroriek 'those (near hearer, general)' beraiek 'those (in the distance, not present)' |
It has often been noted that in traditional usage (but less so among modern speakers), there is often an explicit correlation between the three degrees of proximity in these demonstrative forms and the three grammatical persons, such that hau is made to correspond to ni, hori to hi/zu and so on. One manifestation of this (others lie beyond the scope of this sketch) is the now old-fashioned mode of addressing persons in social positions commanding special respect (such as priests, for example) using third-person verb forms and, for the personal pronoun, the second-degree intensive demonstrative berori (see the above table).
Other pronouns and correlative adverbs
edit| Pronouns | Place adverbs | Manner adverbs | Time adverbs | |
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| Demonstrative |
(see above) |
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| Interrogative |
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| Indefinite |
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| Negative polarity |
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Further forms
edit- All the demonstrative pronouns and adverbs may be extended by the suffix -xe (-txe) which lends further emphasis, e.g. hauxe, hementxe, honelaxe, oraintxe....
- The pronouns can all be declined in any case (see below). The personal and demonstrative exhibit allomorphy between absolutive and declined forms. The adverbs can be adjectivalised by addition of -ko (-go), and some can also take other locative suffixes.
- There are two further series of indefinites, as illustrated by edonor, edonon... and nornahi, zernahi..., respectively; both series may be translated as 'whoever, wherever...' or 'anyone, anywhere...'.
- Negative pronouns and adverbs consist of the negative polarity series together with ez 'no' or as part of a negative sentence: inor ez 'nobody', Ez dut inor ezagutzen 'I don't know anybody' = 'I know nobody'.
Declension
editThe cases
editExcept in the absolutive or zero case, characterised (in the singular at least) by the lack of a case ending, Basque noun phrases are followed by a case suffix which specifies the relation between the noun phrase and the clause it is in (i.e. playing roughly the role of prepositions in English). The most basic cases are shown here, for convenience divided into three main groups: nuclear, locative and others.
Case suffixes are attached to whatever element (noun, adjective, determiner...) comes last in the noun phrase according to the rules already given. The different forms or "declensions" of each case suffix given in the following tables are selected in accordance with the nature of the nominal element to which the case ending is attached, as will be explained below.
| Name | Meaning/Use | Forms ("declensions") | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | ||
| Absolutive | intransitive subject; direct object | -a | -ak | — | |
| Ergative | transitive subject | -ak | -ek | -(e)k | |
| Dative | recipient or affected: 'to', 'for', 'from' | -ari | -ei | -(r)i | |
| Name | Meaning/Use | Forms ("declensions") | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | ||
| Inessive | place where/time when: 'in', 'at', 'on' | -(e)an | -etan | -(e)tan | -(e)n |
| Allative | where to: 'to' | -(e)ra | -etara | -(e)tara | -(r)a |
| Ablative | where from/through: 'from', 'since', 'through' | -(e)tik | -etatik | -(e)tatik | -tik/-dik |
| Local Genitive | pertaining to where/when: 'of' | -(e)ko | -etako | -(e)tako | -ko/-go |
| Name | Meaning/Use | Forms ("declensions") | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | ||
| Possessive Genitive | possessive/genitive: 'of', '-'s' | -aren | -en | -(r)en | |
| Instrumental | means or topic: 'by', 'of', 'about' | -az | -ez | -(e)z, -(e)taz | |
| Comitative | accompaniment or means: 'with' | -arekin | -ekin | -(r)ekin | |
| Benefactive | beneficiary: 'for' | -arentzat | -entzat | -(r)entzat | |
| cause, reason or value: 'because of', '(in exchange) for' | -a(ren)gatik | -engatik | -(r)engatik | ||
Sets of case forms ("declensions")
editThe four sets of forms labelled 1 to 4 in the preceding tables have the following uses and characteristics:
| Set | Type | Comments |
Examples |
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| 1 | SINGULAR ARTICLE | Represent the combination of the singular article -a with the case suffixes. Notice the formal absence of any trace of the -a- morpheme in the local cases, however. The -(e)- in the local cases occurs after consonants. |
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| 2 | PLURAL ARTICLE | Represent the combination of the plural article -ak with the case suffixes. Notice the pre-suffixal plural article allomorphs -eta- (in local cases) and -e- (elsewhere). |
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| 3 | NO ARTICLE | Used in the absence of an article, i.e. when another determiner or quantifier is employed (e.g. zein menditan? 'on which mountain?', zuhaitz askori 'to many trees') or occasionally when there is none at all (cf. oinez and sutan above). The -(e)- and -(r)- shown with some suffixes appear following consonants and vowels respectively. Notice also the pre-suffix -(e)ta- in the local case suffixes for this set. |
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| 4 | PROPER NAMES | Used with proper names. These are identical to set 3 except in the local cases. This set contains the most basic form of each case suffix. The local forms -dik and -go are used after a voiced consonant except r. |
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From the above it may be deduced that the essential formal characteristics of the Basque cases are as shown in the following table:
| NUCLEAR | |
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| Absolutive | — |
| Ergative | -k |
| Dative | -i |
| LOCAL | |
| Inessive | -n |
| Allative | -(r)a |
| Ablative | -tik |
| Local genitive | -ko |
| OTHER | |
| Possessive genitive | -en |
| Instrumental | -z |
| Comitative | -ekin |
| Benefactive | -en-tzat |
| Cause etc. | -en-gatik |
Declension of personal pronouns, demonstratives and bat, batzuk
editFor the most part, the application of these suffixes to any word in the language is highly regular. In this section, we shall note the main exceptions.
Personal pronouns and demonstratives display some irregularities in declension. The personal pronouns ni, hi, gu, zu form their possessive genitive by adding -re rather than -ren: nire, hire, gure, zure. These are the pronominal possessives:
| Singular | Plural |
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nire 'my' hire 'your (very familiar)' zure 'your (polite or neutral)' haren, beraren 'his, her, its' bere 'his, her, its (reflexive)' |
gure 'our' zuen 'your' haien, beraien 'their' beren 'their (reflexive)' |
As we have already seen, the demonstratives each have three stems: one for the absolutive singular (hau, hori, hura), another for all other singular cases (hon-, horr-, har-), and one for the plural, all cases (haue-, horie-, haie-). In the plural they take a -k suffix in the absolutive, as does batzuk 'some').
| Singular absolutive | Singular other | Plural absolutive | Plural other |
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hau 'this' hori 'that' hura 'that (distant)' bat 'one, a' |
honek, honi, honetan... horrek, horri, horretan... hark, hari, hartan... batek, bati, batean... |
hauek horiek haiek batzuk 'some' |
hauek, hauei, hauetan... horiek, horiei, horietan... haiek, haiei, haietan... batzuek, batzuei, batzuetan... |
Animate local cases
editAs a rule, the local case suffixes given above are not used directly with noun phrases that refer to a person or an animal. An inessive, allative or ablative relation affecting such noun phrases may be expressed by using the following suffixes: inessive -gan, allative -gana, ablative -gandik, affixed to either the possessive genitive or the absolutive, e.g. nigan 'in me', irakaslearengana 'to(wards) the teacher' (irakasle 'teacher'), zaldiengandik 'from the horses' (zaldi 'horse'), haur horrengandik 'from that child', Koldorengana 'to(wards) Koldo'.
Compound case forms
editIn addition to the basic case forms given above, further forms are found that are derived from these through the addition of further suffixes or extensions. Some of these additional forms provide for the expression of more nuanced relations; others have the same or similar meanings to the basic forms, with which they merely contrast stylistically or dialectally. Some examples follow:
| Basic case | Compound cases |
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| ALLATIVE: -ra 'to' |
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| ABLATIVE: -tik 'from' |
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| COMITATIVE: -ekin 'with' |
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| BENEFACTIVE: -entzat 'for' |
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Adjectival -ko
editThe -ko suffix (see above) may be added to some case forms to make their syntactic function adjectival.
| Case | Primary use | Adjectival use |
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| Allative |
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| Instrumental |
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| Benefactive |
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Any such adjectivalised forms may be used without an overt head noun, and in this case is likely to appear with a suffixed article, e.g. haurrentzakoa '(the) one for (the) children' [child-for.PLURAL.ART-ko-ART], haurrentzakoak '(the) ones for (the) children' [child-for.PLURAL.ART-ko-PLURAL.ART]. Such nominalised adjectival forms may further take case suffixes of their own, e.g. haurrentzakoarekin 'with the one for children' [child-for.PLURAL.ART-ko-with.ART], euskarazkoentzat 'for the ones in Basque' [Basque-INSTRUMENTAL-ko-for.PLURAL.ART], etc. While the potential to generate and understand (in a reasonable context) such complex forms is built into Basque grammar and perfectly intelligible to speakers, in practice the use of very complex constructions of this type is not too common.
Local cases with adverbs
editThe fourth set of local case suffixes (etymologically the primary forms) are incorporated into the place adverbs, giving the following (partly irregular) forms:
| Demonstrative | Interrogative 'where?' | ||||
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| 'here' | 'there (near)' | 'there (distant)' | |||
| Inessive | 'here, there, where?' | hemen | hor | han | non |
| Allative | 'to here, to there, where to?' | hona | horra | hara | nora |
| Ablative | 'from here/there, where from?', 'this/that way, which way?' | hemendik | hortik | handik | nondik |
| Genitive | 'pertaining to here/there/where?' | hemengo | horko | hango | nongo |
Many other adverbs may be adjectivalised with -ko. Some may take certain other case suffixes (usually from set 4), particularly ablative -tik/-dik, e.g. atzotik 'since yesterday', urrundik 'from far away'.
Postpositions
editBasque postpositions are items of sufficient lexical substance and grammatical autonomy to be treated as separate words (unlike the case suffixes) which specify relations. They are so called because they follow the word or phrase whose relation they express (compare prepositions which precede a word or phrase; but Basque does not have prepositions).
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Most Basque postpositions require the complement they follow to adopt a particular case form (that is, such postpositions govern a certain case). Postpositions in Basque furthermore often take a case suffix (or may take several different case suffixes) themselves. To understand this, consider the analogy of an English compound preposition such as on top of, where of is comparable to the case taken by a Basque noun preceding a postposition (in this case it would be the genitive) and on is like the case suffix (inessive in this case) taken by the postposition (to which top corresponds). Now see how Basque expresses on top of and a few other postpositional notions: |
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The most typical Basque postpositions are built on nominal structures; for example, -aren gainean 'on top of' is centred on the word gain which means 'top'. But not all postpositional nuclei consist of nouns that can be used independently of the postpositional construction(s) in which they participate.
One subset of postpositions that express spatial relationships (again exemplified by gainean) have a lexical stem whose syntactic behaviour is roughly noun-like but limited to a much narrower range of possible patterns (in the grammars of some non-European languages such elements are called relational nouns or relationals). Some Basque relationals are:
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Typical Basque relationals can enter into two possible relations with the preceding (governed) complement: (1) the complement is a noun phrase in a possessive genitive relation, e.g. |
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(2) the complement is an unsuffixed noun (not a noun phrase) in a relation resembling a lexical compound, e.g. |
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In these examples, the relational (e.g. gain-) takes the set 1 (singular) inessive case suffix (-(e)an), as in mendiaren gainean and these further examples, |
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but other local case suffixes (glossed in capitals) may occur instead of the inessive as sense or usage conventions require, e.g. |
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These relationals are often used in an adverbial function without a preceding complement (thus not as postpositions), e.g. |
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There are a few relationals, such as kanpo- 'outside', goi- 'up' and behe- 'down', that cannot be preceded by a complement of the kind described but have an adverbial uses resembling these, e.g. Kanpora noa 'I'm going outside', Goian dago 'It is above', etc. The irregular allative of goi is gora 'up(wards)'.
Comparison
editIn English, the comparative and superlative of many adjectives and adverbs are formed by adding the suffixes -er and -est respectively (from big, for example, bigger and biggest are formed). Basque adjectives and adverbs similarly take such suffixes, except that in Basque there are three morphologically derived degrees of comparison, e.g. from handi 'big' we can form handiago 'bigger', handien(a) '(the) biggest' (where -a is the article) and handiegi 'too big':
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Comparative, superlative and excessive adjectives may be used in the same syntactic frames as adjectives in the positive (basic) degree, e.g. compare mendi altuak 'high mountains' [mountain high.PLURAL.ART] and mendi altuagoak 'higher mountains' [mountain higher.PLURAL.ART]. But the noun preceding a superlative often takes the partitive suffix -(r)ik, thus either mendi altuenak or mendirik altuenak 'the highest mountains'.
Occasionally such suffixes may be added to other word forms, e.g. from gora 'up' (irregular allative of the relational goi-, hence literally 'to above') we may form gorago (for gora + -ago), 'more up', i.e. 'higher'. Just as English has a few irregular forms of comparison such as better and best (from good or well), so does Basque, e.g. on 'good' but hobe 'better'. Other ways of comparing quality or manner, in both Basque and English, involve using a separate word, such as hain handi 'so big'.
Special words are used to compare quantities (how much or how many of something): here we may mention in particular gehiago 'more', gehien(a) '(the) most', gehiegi 'too much, too many' which follow the noun quantified, e.g. liburu gehiago 'more books', gatz gehiegi 'too much salt', and hainbeste 'so much, so many' which precedes the noun, e.g. hainbeste diru 'so much money'. All of these can also be used adverbially (comparing the extent to which something occurs or is the case), e.g. Ez pentsatu hainbeste! 'Don't think so much!'.
Comparisons may involve reference to a standard (of comparison): compare English is easier (no standard mentioned: we don't specify easier than what) to English is easier than Basque (where Basque is referred to as the standard of comparison). Here English puts the word than in front of the standard. In Fish is as expensive as meat, meat is the standard, indicated here by the second as (compare Fish is as expensive or Fish is so expensive, where no standard is mentioned). Comparisons of the as...as type are called equative. With superlatives, as in Donostia is the prettiest city in the Basque Country, on the other hand, the Basque Country is not really a standard but a domain or range within which the superlative applies. The structures used in such comparisons in Basque are as follows (the second table shows examples); the word orders shown are the most common and considered basic, although certain variations are also possible.
| Qualitative | Quantitative | |||
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| Construction | Meaning | Construction | Meaning | |
| Comparative | STANDARD baino COMPARATIVE | ADJ/ADV-er than STANDARD | STANDARD baino NOUN gehiago | more NOUN(s) than STANDARD |
| Superlative | DOMAIN-(e)ko NOUN-(r)ik SUPERLATIVE-a | the ADJ/ADV-est NOUN in the DOMAIN | DOMAIN-(e)ko NOUN-(r)ik gehienak | most NOUNs in the DOMAIN |
| Equative | STANDARD bezain ADJ/ADV | as ADJ/ADV as STANDARD | STANDARD adina NOUN | as much/many NOUN(s) as STANDARD |
| Example | Meaning | ||
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| Comparative | Qualitative | Ingelesa euskara baino errazagoa da. | 'English is easier than Basque.' |
| Quantitative | Zuk nik baino diru gehiago daukazu. | 'You've got more money than me.' | |
| Superlative | Qualitative | Donostia Euskal Herriko hiririk politena da. | 'Donostia is the prettiest city in the Basque Country.' |
| Quantitative | Arabako lanposturik gehienak Gasteizen daude. | 'Most of the jobs in Araba are in Gasteiz.' | |
| Equative | Qualitative | Arraina haragia bezain garestia da. | 'Fish is as expensive as meat.' |
| Quantitative | Zuk nik adina lagun dituzu. | 'You have as many friends as I (do).' | |
The verb
edit(see Basque verbs - create link here)
It has long been a commonplace that the Basque verb is very (even impossibly) difficult and complicated. While this popular belief is probably based on some truth and some exaggeration, it may have been reinforced further by the tendency of traditional Basque grammars and grammarians to concentrate on providing seemingly interminable verb tables, while neglecting, in proportion, many other aspects of Basque grammar.
The impression (or reality) that the Basque verb system is difficult to learn and complicated to describe is largely accounted for as a cumulative effect deriving from the following features:
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→ In the form g-en-e-ra-ma-z-ki-zu-e-ke-ela-ko-an meaning 'in the belief that we would take them to you (pl.)', -ma- is the lexical stem and all the other parts are grammatical prefixes or suffixes! |
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→ In ikusten bagaituzte 'if they see us', bagaituzte is an auxiliary which may combine with any other transitive verb, e.g. ezagutzen bagaituzte 'if they know us', gonbidatzen bagaituzte 'if they invite us', etc. The auxiliary ba-g-a-it-u-z-te is a complex morphological form. |
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→ Just the present tense of one verb, ekarri 'bring', has twenty-eight forms with two arguments (dakart 'I bring it', dakarzu 'you bring it', dakartzat 'I bring them', nakarzu 'you bring me'...) and a further fifty-six forms with three arguments (dakarkiot 'I bring it to him', dakarkiozu 'you bring it to him', dakarkizut 'I bring it to you', dakarzkiot 'I bring them to him'...), not counting familiar and allocutive forms. |
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→ Not only are there special informal second person indices (like tu in French, tú or vos in Spanish), e.g. dakark 'you bring it', but special alternative non-second-person forms too, e.g. zekarreat 'I bring it'. These forms also vary depending on the gender of the person being addressed. |
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→ The form generamazkizuekeelakoan mentioned above is rather unlikely to occur although not altogether impossible. (Out of context, however, even a grammatically untrained but fluent native speaker may have difficulty deciphering it.) |
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→ 'I am' may be naiz, naz or niz, depending on the dialect. 'I have it' may be dut, düt, dot or det. 'He had it' may be zuen, zuan, zun, zon, zian, zin or eban. |
Needless to say, these sources of complexity are offset by much deep-going regularity and an internal "logic" of the system which ensure complete learnability provided an appropriate heuristic is followed and the necessary underlying concepts are mastered.
Syntax
editWord order
editBasque is sometimes described as an SOV language. If it is one, it is not strict SOV, and grammars typically emphasise this through examples that illustrate multiple word-order options. Yet it is also misleading to call Basque word order free, since most word-order choices respond to syntactic or pragmatic constraints. Yet another approach proposes that while word order is "flexible" (in some sense), there is a basic (underlying or unmarked) order and a set of rules determining departures from or changes in that order. If this approach is adopted, the basic order in question would certainly be SOV. On the other hand, it is possible to argue that the rules can be formulated in such a way that they cover all (or almost all) word-order phenomena thereby rendering the unmarked order hypothesis explanatorily redundant.
If the "basically-SOV" premise is not adopted as a necessary means of predicting Basque word order, it may still be considered pertinent in a typological characterisation of Basque syntax as a "parameter" or for implicational purposes; in other words, within some theoretical or methodological frameworks there may still be reasons for calling Basque an SOV (or OV) type of language, having to do with the possibility of predicting other language features on that basis.
Most of the constraints on Basque word order at the level of the clause refer to information structure (focusing and topicalisation), to which we therefore now turn.
Information structure
editThe focus rule and the topic rule
editBasque word order is largely determined by the notions of focus and topic which are employed to decide how to "package" or structure the propositional content (information) in utterances. Focus is a feature that attaches to a part of a sentence considered to contain the most important information of the sentence, it's "point". Topic refers to a part of a sentence that serves to put the information into context, i.e. to establish what we are talking about. Basque word order involves in a very basic way two rules, the "focus rule" and the "topic rule", as follows:
- Focus rule: Whichever constituent of a sentence is in focus immediately precedes the verb.
- Topic rule: A topic is emphasised by placing it at the beginning of the sentence.
Compare, for example:
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TXAKURREK hezurrak jaten dituzte. 'Dogs eat bones.'
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HEZURRAK txakurrek jaten dituzte. 'Dogs eat bones,' 'Bones are eaten by dogs,' 'It is dogs who eat bones.'
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Basque is sometimes called an SOV (i.e. subject-object-verb) language, but as we can see the order of elements in the Basque sentence is not rigidly determined by grammatical roles (such as subject and object) and has to do with other criteria (such as focus and topic). As it happens, the SOV is more common and less marked than the OSV order, although each is appropriate and expected in different contexts (as are other word orders). That is to say, it is more common and less marked (other things being equal) for the subject to be topic and for the object to be in focus than vice-versa. This may be explained by intrinsic qualities of the concepts "subject" and "object". It is compatible with the cross-linguistic tendency for topichood to be a characteristic feature of prototypical subjects, for example.
Verbal focus
editA possibility seemingly not taken into account by the above focus rule, which states that the focused element precedes the verb, is the circumstance wherein the verb itself is in focus. One situation in which this occurs is a clause with no (or no focused) non-verbal constituents, only perhaps a topic-subject, as in 'He knows' or 'John is coming' (in contexts where 'he' or 'John' are not focused). Of course there my be other constituents, as long as none of them are focused, e.g. 'She has money' (where the point of the utterance is not to tell us what she has, but whether or not she has it). This type of sentence is sometimes described as one in which what is in focus is not so much the verb as the affirmation of the predicate; i.e. 'She has money' does not really stand in contrast to, say, 'She eats money', but only to 'She doesn't have money'. For the present practical purpose this distinction may be ignored and the term "verbal focus" will be applied to such cases.
The most notable verb-focusing strategy in Basque grammar is use of the affirmative prefix ba-. Attached to a synthetically conjugated finite verb, this has the effect of putting that verb (or its affirmation, if one prefers) in focus, thereby implying that whatever (if anything) precedes the verb is not in focus. Thus the use of ba- looks as if it blocks application of the general focus rule which assigns focus to an element in pre-verbal position.
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Berak daki. [he.ERGATIVE (he).knows.(it)] 'He knows,' 'He's the one who know.'
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Badaki. [ba-(he).knows.(it)] 'He knows.'
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BERAK badaki. (or: Badaki BERAK.) '(As for) him, he knows,' 'He knows, (he does).'
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The affirmative use of ba- (not to confused with the homophonic subordinating prefix meaning 'if') is normally used with synthetic finite forms, thus also John badator or Badator John 'John is coming' (as opposed to John dator 'John is coming'), Badu dirua (or in western Basque Badauka dirua) 'She has money'. In most varieties of Basque, affirmative ba- is not so used with compound tenses or compound verbs, however.
To place a compound verb form (or its affirmation) in focus, it may be enough to place the main sentence stress (which normally goes on the focused item) on the first component of the verbal compound expression. Here it seems that the auxiliary part of the expression is treated as representing the "verb" in the general focus rule, thereby predictably throwing the focus onto the preceding component, which is now the main verb. In western dialects an alternative procedure used to emphasise the placement of focus on the verb is to make this a complement of the verb egin 'do'.
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Bérak ikusi du. 'He has seen it,' 'He's the one who has seen it.'
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Ikúsi du. 'He has seen it (he has indeed!).'
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BERAK ikúsi du. (or: Ikúsi du BERAK.) '(As for) him, he has (indeed) seen it.'
Western Basque alternative: (Berak) ikusi egin du. |
Further observations on focus and topic
editThere are certain exceptions to the general focus rule:
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Heavy constituents may be placed after an unfocused verb even when they are (pragmatically) focused. |
Atzo ikusi nuen asto bat betaurrekoekin. 'Yesterday I saw a donkey with (i.e. wearing) glasses.' |
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Imperative verbs often precede other constituents (except for topics). |
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Some subordinate clauses are exempt from certain rules. For example, an unfocused verb is allowed to occur without any focused clause constituent in such clauses. |
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Systematic exceptions apart, focus assignment (as defined in the preceding sections) is an obligatory feature of Basque clauses. Because it is obligatory and automatic, such focus assignment need not be pragmatically marked and does not necessarily signify emphatic focusing or foregrounding. This observation is particularly applicable when focus is assigned in accordance with predictable or prototypical patterns, such as when the direct object takes the focus position in a transitive clause, or when the verb is formally focused in an intransitive clause.
In some varieties or styles of Basque, e.g. in poetic diction, one may achieve more emphatic focus (even on an object) by inverting the usual verb-auxiliary order: Txakurrek hezurrak dituzte jaten. In ordinary colloquial usage many speakers do not allow this, but some allow other such "inversions", e.g. with compound verbs (light-verb constructions), e.g. normal Irakaslearekin hitz egingo dut 'I'll speak to the teacher' (ordinary focus on irakaslearekin) versus more marked Irakaslearekin egingo dut hitz (emphatic focus on irakaslearekin).
A topic may be backgrounded (although arguably still remaining a topic) by placement at the end of a sentence rather than at the beginning, e.g. Hezurrak jaten dituzte txakurrek, roughly 'They eat bones, dogs'; so also Ez dakit, nik 'I don't know', where nik is no doubt a topic of sorts since if it weren't there would be no need to mention it at all (unmarked: Ez dakit).
Clause-initial verbs
editAlthough the following restrictions on the placement of verbs within the clause are the outcome of the various rules already given, it may be useful to summarise those restrictions here.
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A finite verb form (a synthetically conjugative verb or auxiliary) cannot stand in absolute clause-initial position unless: (1) it is preceded by affirmative (verb-focusing) ba-... |
Badakit. 'I know.' |
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(2) it is preceded by negative ez (see below)... |
Ez dauka dirurik. 'She hasn't got any money.' |
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(3) it is imperative (or optative)... |
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(4) certain subordinate clauses... |
datorren astean 'next week' |
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A compound verb form (a verb in a compound tense or a compound verb construction) may be clause-initial in cases of verbal focus: |
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Negation
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Negation is expressed by ez preceding the finite verb form. |
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If there is no finite verb in the clause, such as when the participle on its own is used as an imperative or in non-finite subordinate clauses, ez may precede a non-finite verb. (VN stands for verbal noun.) |
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There is a strong tendency for other sentence constituents to follow a negated finite verb, except when topicalised. In other words, the general focus rule does not apply with negated finite verb forms (in the same way as it doesn't apply with verbs with the affirmative ba- prefix, see see above). |
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Compound tense forms of verbs, and also compound verbs, are negated by placing ez in front of the finite auxiliary (or light verb, if finite); the other components of the verbal construction are normally placed after the negated finite form. |
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In this construction the postposed verb component(s) may be separated from the finite auxiliary or light verb. Focused constituents, unless somewhat heavy, will be placed between the two. |
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An indefinite subject of an intransitive verb, or an indefinite direct object of a transitive verb, usually take the negative polarity article -(r)ik instead of the normal article -a, -ak in negative (or other negative-polar) sentences. |
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There are no true negative pronouns (or adverbs, etc.) as such. The negative-polar pronouns etc. are used in negative contexts (and other negative-polarity contexts too). All such words may be combined directly with ez (or gabe 'without', which also has an intrinsically negative meaning). Some speakers do accept uses of negative-polar words in isolation, with ez implicit. |
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Questions
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Yes-no questions either take the same form as the corresponding statement, or incorporate a question marker. |
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There are two question markers: al for straightforward yes-no questions, and ote for tentative questions of any kind (yes-no or not). Both al and ote are placed immediately in front of the finite verb form. The question marker al is not used pan-dialectally. In some dialects the same function is performed by a suffix -a attached to the finite verb form (thus the equivalents of the above examples are John ikusi duzu(i)a? and Badakia?). Still other dialects lack either interrogative al or interrogative -a.
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See Negation above concerning the use of negative polarity items; these may occur in yes-no questions. |
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In choice questions, 'or' is either ala or edo, although the former is often taught as more correct. |
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Word order in wh-questions (i.e. those with question words) is fully accounted for by the general rules of Basque word order, granted a further rule for Basque (shared by many other languages) which states that interrogative phrases (e.g. nor 'who?', zein etxe zuritan? 'in which white house?', zenbat diru 'how much money?', etc.) are obligatorily focused.
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Therefore, wh-expressions must immediately precede the verb, and none of the verb-focusing constructions are possible (since these would result in moving the focus away from the wh-expression). |
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The interrogative phrase is often placed first, but as in other sentences, topics may be foregrounded through fronting and so precede the wh-expression; such constructions are fairly common in Basque. |
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Sentence mood particles
editIt was noted above that yes-no questions may be marked by the particle al, e.g. John ikusi al duzu? 'Have you seen John?' Al is one of a very small number of sentence mood particles which serve to qualify the position the speaker adopts about the truthfulness of the proposition being uttered.
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All these particles occupy a single "slot" in the verbal group, which is immediately preceding a finite verb form. They may be inserted between a focused constituent or affirmative ba- or negative ez and the verb. |
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Grammatical relations
editGrammatical relations are represented in Basque grammar by case marking of noun phrases (the forms of which are presented above in the section on the Noun Phrase), and also, in the case of nuclear (absolutive, ergative or dative) arguments, by indexing on the finite verb (as explained in the article on Basque verbs). Thus Basque has a double system of grammatical relation marking which combines dependent-marking (the case suffixes) and head-marking (verbal indexing). The two systems are mutually symmetrical, in that they both refer to a single set of case relation categories and consequently agree with each other. For example, if a given argument in a given clause is dative for the case-marking system it is also dative for the verb-indexing system, and vice-versa; and likewise for the other nuclear relations (ergative and absolutive).
Typologically, Basque may thus be contrasted with languages of various kinds: both with dependent-marking languages in which grammatical relations are only (or principally) marked through cases, but not (or less extensively) indexed in the verb (e.g. modern Swedish), and with head-marking languages in which, on the contrary, grammatical relations are registered through indices in the verb but without any case marking on arguments (e.g. Swahili). There are also languages in which case-marking and verb-indexing systems are combined but do not "agree" with each other (e.g. in some Oceanic languages, case marking is of an ergative type whereas verb indices follow a pattern of an accusative type). The perception of Basque syntax often assumed in grammatical descriptions whereby verbs are said to "agree" with nominal arguments (rather than the other way around), which frames Basque grammatical relations in primarily dependent-marking terms, may be traceable to a predisposition to perceive a dependent-marking system arising from the circumstance that most European languages are predominantly dependent-marking languages.
Thus in the Swahili sentence (Ashton, Swahili grammar, p. 218) Chura alimkasirikia mjusi 'The frog was angry with the lizard' it is the form of the verb alimkasirikia alone that indicates what may be called a dative (rather than accusative) relation of the argument mjusi 'lizard'; the latter bears no case marking whatsoever. On the contrary, in the Vulgar Latin sentence Mulier fructum viro suo dedit 'The woman gave the fruit to the man', the case marking on the noun vir 'man, husband' alone, and not the verb form dedit 'gave', tells us that it is in the dative case. Now in Basque, both the "dative" verb form (often actually the auxiliary) and the dative case suffix of the noun phrase representing the argument in question provide the same information (redundantly) about the latter's dative grammatical relation:
- Jauna biziki haserretu zitzaion Uzari. 'The Lord was incensed at Uzzah.'
[lord.ARTICLE intensely get.angry.PARTICIPLE INTRANSITIVE.DATIVE.AUXILIARY Uzzah.DATIVE]
II Samuel, 6:7; Elizen arteko Biblia, p. 371-2 - Emakumeak fruitua bere senarrari eman zion. 'The woman gave the fruit to her husband.'
[woman.ARTICLE.ERGATIVE fruit.ARTICLE her husband.ARTICLE.DATIVE give.PARTICIPLE TRANSITIVE.DATIVE.AUXILIARY]
Coordinating conjunctions
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Relative clauses
editThere are two major constructions which may be used to form relative clauses in Miskito, the 'external head' strategy and the 'internal head' strategy.
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In the external head strategy there is no subordination marker of any kind and the relative clause precedes the head noun, which takes a ligature, beside which it usually has an article too. |
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If the head is not expressed, an article following the relative clause serves to identify and delimit it. |
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In the internal head construction, the head noun is not extracted from the place it underlyingly occupies in the relative clause, which is bounded by an article as in headless external head clauses. |
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In the 'headless' counterpart of the internal construction, the place of the head within the relative clause is occupied by an interrogative pronoun. |
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Complement clauses
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A complement clause may bear no subordination marker but merely be followed by the article ba functioning in practice as a nominalizer. |
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Indirect questions end in saba (i.e. sa 'is' + ba article). |
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The tense of complement clauses does not follow that of the matrix clause, but directly expresses a time relation in reference to the matrix. |
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Complement clauses that have no autonomous time reference ('irrealis') take Future II. |
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Conditional and concessive clauses
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Conditional ('if') clauses add kaka and precede the consequence clause. (Kaka is the third-person different subject participle of kaia 'be', literally "it being (the case that)".) |
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Concessive ('although') clauses may end in sin 'also, either, even', or in sakuna 'but'. |
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Circumstantial clauses
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Circumstantial clauses generally end in a subordinating conjunction of some sort. Sometimes the article ba precedes the conjunction, which may take the form of a preposition... |
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a relational... |
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or a noun. |
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Lexicon
editGeneral
editAs regards origin, the Miskito lexicon consists of the following principal components:
- words of native Miskito origin;
- a considerable number of loans from surrounding languages of the related Sumo group;
- a large number of loan words from English;
- a smaller number of words borrowed from Spanish.
Derivation
editSome derivational affixes:
| affix | function | meaning | examples |
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| -ira suffix | (1) adjectives from nouns (with ligature) | abundance |
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| (2) adjectives from nominalized adjectives in -(i)ka | superlative |
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| -s suffix | adjectives from nouns (with ligature) | privative, '-less' |
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| -(i)ka suffix | nouns from adjectives | abstract nouns, '-ness' (cf. ligature) |
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| -(i)ra suffix | nouns from adjectives | abstract nouns, '-ness' |
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| -aika suffix | nouns from verbs | (1) instrument |
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| (2) place |
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| -anka suffix | nouns from verbs | action (nominalized past participle) |
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| -ra suffix | nouns from verbs | action |
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| reduplication + -ra suffix | nouns from verbs | (1) agent, '-er' |
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| (2) undergoer |
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| -b- or -k- suffix | (1) verbs from verb roots | transitive verb |
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| (2) verbs from adjective roots |
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| -w- suffix | verbs | intransitive verb |
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| (2) verbs from adjective roots |
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| ai- prefix | intransitive verbs from transitives | reflexive or middle |
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Lexical compounds
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Miskito has a large number of light-verb constructions or compound verbs which consist of two words but express meanings that are lexically determined for the construction as a whole, e.g. |
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A similar construction is used in verbs that are loans from English: the borrowed lexeme is an invariable element (ilp, wark, want...) followed by a Miskito verb, e.g. |
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Nominal compounds are much less common. |
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See also
editBibliography
edit- Richter, Elke (no date). Observaciones acerca del desarrollo lexical miskito en Nicaragua. [1]
- Salamanca, Danilo (no date). Gramática escolar del Miskito/Manual de Gramática del Miskito. Draft version formerly on the Internet.
External links
edit- Ethnologue
- Diccionario Miskito by Danilo Salamanca
- Lengua Miskito (PROEL: Promotora Española de Lingüística) — short page in Spanish containing several errors
- Gospel Recordings Network: Miskito — sound recordings
- A Lexicographic Study of Ulwa by Thomas Michael Green
- Dictionary of the Ulwa Language (includes sentences translated into Miskito)
- Bibliography