Abstract
This chapter introduces the book by providing a summary of its major claims: that word-formation is derived through a principled order of morphological operations organized within modular components, that morphotactics enjoys structural parallelism with phonotactics, and that the ‘Distributed’ of Distributed Morphology is its key insight. The chapter provides an overview of the Basque language and the three dialectal varieties around which the analysis is developed, along with an introduction to argument structure, case assignment, and verbal syntax in the language.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The reader familiar with the Basque linguistic literature will find that our glosses of finite verbs differ significantly from those in other works. This is due to several important differences in analysis, for which we provide justification throughout this book. See Sect. 1.4.3 for a summary of these differences.
- 2.
As such, it would also be the locus of the introduction of theme vowels and conjugation class features in languages (unlike Basque) that have these, such as the Indo-European and Bantu languages.
- 3.
The source for these data is the Department of Culture of the Government of the Basque Autonomous Community, and they are available at http://www1.euskadi.net/euskara_adierazleak/indice.apl. According to the same source, the total number of inhabitants of age 16 or older in the Basque Country was 2, 589, 629 in 2006.
- 4.
Many of these speakers have learned Basque as a second language in an academic setting. According to the same source, 406,466 speakers are Basque-dominant bilinguals or balanced bilinguals.
- 5.
The nonsolid lines in the map in Fig. 1.3 represent borders of the provinces. Note that both High and Low Navarrese are split up into two separate dialects each in the map, which also includes the now extinct Roncalais dialect. Zuazo (1998) proposes important revisions to the traditional classification of dialects (see also Zuazo 2003, 2008). For instance, although the boundaries of Biscayan (which he labels ‘Western’) are roughly the same as in Fig. 1.3, his classification of this dialect into subdialects differs significantly from the traditional one established by Bonaparte. These details are not important within the current analysis of Basque verbal morphology.
- 6.
In giving the names of these and other varieties and the towns they are spoken in, we have adopted standard conventions used by Basque speakers. For instance, our name for the town of Ondarru is in common use both by people from this town and many others, but it is often referred to as ‘Ondarroa’ (Hualde and Ortiz de Urbina 2003) or ‘Ondárroa’ (de Yrizar 1992b) in the literature, and the name of the town of Lekeitio is given as ‘Lequeitio’ in de Yrizar (1992b). See Appendix B.
- 7.
See http://www1.euskadi.net/euskara_adierazleak/indice.apl. This source does not distinguish among speakers of the local variety and those who speak only Batua. As far as we have been able to find out, there are no reliable current statistics on the number of speakers of local varieties of Basque. de Yrizar (1992b:Vol. 1) estimates that in 1970, there were a total of 6,400 speakers of Basque in Lekeitio (p. 91), 7,300 in Ondarru (p. 217) and 1,400 in Zamudio (p. 587). Since Batua had not been developed yet and the teaching of Basque was very rare at that time, these figures seem to be more reliable indicators of the number of speakers of each variety.
- 8.
See Sect. 1.4.3 for a brief explanation of glosses in auxiliary forms.
- 9.
For instance, Gaminde (2000:373) notes that the few monotransitive auxiliaries with a first or second person absolutive clitic that he has gathered are all from older speakers (in their 60s or 70s). Even these speakers prefer DOM-triggered ditransitive forms.
- 10.
Similarly, all instances of ts in Biscayan are replaced with tz.
- 11.
Subjects of unergative verbs also bear ergative case. See Sect. 2.5 in Chap. 2 for examples. We adopt the standard assumption that they have the same syntax as subjects of transitive predicates.
- 12.
The progressive construction in Basque displays a case of an apparent split, since its subject is always absolutive, even with transitive predicates. As shown in Hualde and Ortiz de Urbina (1987), the progressive in fact involves a biclausal structure, which Laka (2006) uses as evidence against a split ergativity view of the phenomenon. See Coon (2010) for an extension of this biclausal analysis to aspect-based ergativity splits in other languages.
- 13.
See, among others, Ortiz de Urbina (1989:51–61), Oyharçabal (1992), Laka (1993b, 2005), Fernández and Albizu (2000), Rezac (2004, 2008c), Holguín (2007) and Rezac et al. (2011) for alternative analyses of case assignment in Basque.
- 14.
See Sect. 2.2.1 for discussion on the relation between case and KP.
- 15.
This argument cannot be replicated in Biscayan varieties, including the ones studied here, in which this raising verb does not determine the case on the derived subject, which is instead ergative or absolutive according to properties of the lower predicate. For instance, the subject of the counterpart of (11b) in Biscayan is absolutive, not ergative.
- 16.
Note that the experiencer argument (pro-droped in 1.4.1) has absolutive case, reflected by absolutive cliticization in the main verb be. Rezac et al. (2011) assume that this is the reason why absolutive case is not available for the internal argument of beldur ‘afraid’.
- 17.
Basque has a complex system of nonfinite sentence embedding. Nonfinite verbs can bear a number of different inflectional affixes, depending on the selecting verb and other largely syntactic factors. This morphology correlates to a certain extent with properties of the subject such as case and control (Ortiz de Urbina 1989:166–188; San Martin 2004). Since these distinctions are not important here, we simply gloss all of them as ‘nf’. See Hualde (2003d), Artiagoitia (2003a:737–752, 2003b:656–710) and Oyharçabal (2003a:790–795) for detailed descriptions of the facts, and Hualde et al. (1994:110–117, 182–209) for Lekeitio.
- 18.
The syntax of dative arguments in Basque is quite complex. For a more complete picture of this aspect of Basque syntax, as well as alternative analyses to the one adopted here, see, among others, E. Arregi and Ormazabal (2003), Rezac (2008b), Etxepare and Oyharçabal (2010), Ormazabal and Romero (2010), Fernández and Ortiz de Urbina (2010) and others cited below.
- 19.
This structure is adapted from Cuervo (2003:164–173). She splits our V into a light v head and a categoryless root, a detail that is not relevant for our purposes. We additionally assume a v head above ApplP, in line with the structure proposed for other predicate types above.
- 20.
As shown in Tables 1.3 and 1.4, definite singular and plural forms are segmentically identical in most nonlocative cases in Biscayan dialects. However, they are not completely homophonous, due to stress/pitch accent. See Hualde et al. (1994:50–68) for a description of accentuation in Lekeitio, and pp. 87–95 in that work for Lekeitio inflected forms that include accent marking.
- 21.
DPs headed by demonstratives are an exception. Unlike other dialects, demonstratives are DP-initial in many Biscayan varieties, and carry nominal inflection matching the features also visible on the last word in the DP (Hualde et al. 1994:97–102).
- 22.
It is clear from Tables 1.3 and 1.4 on p. 28 that inflectional endings in DPs can be split into two positions: one encoding definiteness and number, followed by a case morpheme. The first position is null in indefinite nonlocative cases and in definite singular locative cases, and the second position is null in the definite singular (and possibly also plural) absolutive case. We abstract away from this decomposition in this book.
- 23.
There is also a distinction between proximate and nonproximate plurals, not included here. See the references cited at the beginning of this subsection.
- 24.
Indefinites do trigger singular or plural agreement and clitic-doubling in the finite verb, depending on their semantic number.
- 25.
Strong personal pronouns and names have somewhat special inflectional forms, in that they do not seem to encode definiteness. We gloss these by simply indicating case. See Sect. 1.4.4 for clitic pronouns.
- 26.
Certain particles can intervene between the participle and the auxiliary, which are otherwise adjacent in affirmative sentences. See Sect. 5.7.3 in Chap. 5.
- 27.
The first position is sometimes occupied by morphemes other than an absolutive clitic, including the L-morpheme glossed ‘l’ in 1.4.3. The template in 1.4.3 abstracts away from the position of the plural clitic exponent -e. Both phenomena are discussed at length in Chaps. 2 and 5. Complementizer agreement appears to be unique to the Biscayan dialect.
- 28.
This includes the plural clitic exponent -e (not included in 1.4.3), often analyzed as the realization of plural agreement (see Sect. 3.3.6 in Chap. 3). A related difference has to do with decomposition of our (atomic) dative clitics into a so-called ‘dative flag’ and a dative clitic proper. See Sect. 3.3.3 in Chap. 3 for discussion.
- 29.
- 30.
The claim is made explicitly in Arregi (1998) and Fernández (1999). The same conclusion is entailed by related work where it is claimed that the first position in 1.4.3 is the realization of agreement features in v or V (i.a. Fernández and Albizu 2000; Rezac 2003; Rezac 2008b).
- 31.
We uphold the Head Movement Constraint throughout our analysis of Basque auxiliary word formation. Pronominal clitics, which originate in the specifier of functional heads and thus move as phrases in their first step of cliticization (see Sect. 2.2.3 in Chap. 2), may subsequently undergo local Head Movement from their landing site.
- 32.
The form of these morphemes resembles that of (nonclitic) pronouns. This justifies in part the adoption of the clitic analysis, and has been taken as evidence for the claim that these morphemes are historically derived from pronouns. See Gómez López and Sainz (1995:249–256), Trask (1997:218–221), and references cited there. Note however that these works take our pronominal clitics to be agreement morphemes in Modern Basque.
- 33.
The traditional names for the different types of auxiliary are based on the wh-word nor ‘who’ inflected for the different cases: NOR (absolutive), NOR-NORI (absolutive-dative), NOR-NORK (absolutive-ergative), NOR-NORI-NORK (absolutive-dative-ergative).
- 34.
The verbs with finite forms in Lekeitio are: dxuan ‘go’, etorri ‘come’, eruan ‘carry’, ekarri ‘bring’, esan ‘say’, ixan ‘be’ (similar to Spanish ser), egon ‘be’ (similar to Spanish estar), ibilli ‘walk’, euki ‘have’, and dxakin ‘know’. Only the last five have past tense forms. The list in Ondarru is very similar, with two differences: ekarri ‘bring’ has no finite forms, and all of them except erun ‘carry’ and esan ‘say’ have past tense forms. The list in Zamudio is the same as in Lekeitio, with the addition of two more verbs: erabili ‘use’, and eritzi ‘consider’, and past forms are available for egon ‘be’, ibili ‘walk’, and euki ‘have’ (Gaminde 2000:377–382).
- 35.
The only exception we are aware of is the finite verb in the following idiom (cf. Spanish Me tienes hasta los cojones):(i) Potru-k arte n -a -k -su. ( > nakasu)testicle-abs.pl up.to cl.a.1.sg -prs.1.sg -have -cl.e.2.sg ‘I’m fed up with you.’(Ondarru)
- 36.
Note that these are different from the verbs have and be in 1.4.5.1. Possessive euki (whose root is -ku/uk- in Ondarru) is in common use in Biscayan, where monotransitive auxiliary forms do not have main verb uses. The copula e(g)on (whose root is -o/u- in Ondarru) alternates with ixan in a way similar to Spanish estar and ser.
- 37.
Conditional forms are used in counterfactual conditionals, and indicative conditionals are based on indicative forms of auxiliaries. Potential finite forms are used to express existential modality, and the use of subjunctive forms is similar to Romance (with a narrower distribution). See Oyharçabal (2003b:268–284).
- 38.
In fact, subjunctive forms are barely used in Lekeitio and Ondarru (Hualde et al. 1994:120), where instead the use of nonfinite clauses in subjunctive contexts is very common.
- 39.
In some eastern dialects of Basque, allocutive clitics are also used with singular formal addressees (Oyharçabal 1993).
- 40.
Allocutive forms gathered from older speakers of Lekeitio and Zamudio Basque can be found in Hualde et al. (1994:134–135) and Gaminde (2000:382–385), respectively.
- 41.
See Artiagoitia (2003c) for reflexives and reciprocals in Basque, and Hualde et al. (1994:176–182) for Lekeitio.
- 42.
Compare English *I saw ourselves in the mirror. Detransitivization is not a possible strategy in this type of example in Basque.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Arregi, K., Nevins, A. (2012). Introduction: The Structure of Spellout. In: Morphotactics. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, vol 86. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3889-8_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3889-8_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-3888-1
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-3889-8
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)