Agreement&Case in Basque

1. Types of Agreement in Basque

1. Concord or head modifier agreement

Generally there is no concord phenomenon between nouns and adjectives. Thus we find that when a noun is modified by an adjective it has a bare form where the plural marker, article and case marker appear only at the end of the phrase not on its individual parts.

Example (from Saltarelli, M 1988: 81-82)

 

bi etxe zuri

two house white-Æ

‘two white houses’

 

exte zahar haundi-etan

house old big-def.pl.loc

‘in the large old houses’

 

gona gorri estu luze-ak

skirt red tight long-def.pl.Abs

‘the long tight red skirts’

 

Therefore, we have shown that nouns cannot be directly inflected in Basque: it is only noun phrases, which are inflected in Basque. The same pattern proves to be true for all other modifiers of nouns: demonstratives, quantifiers, numerals.

At the same time we can find evidence that although Basque doesn’t concord nouns and its modifiers predicate adjectives may optionally agree with the subjects of copular verbs in number and case. This agreement is very prominent in the western dialects but less common in the eastern dialects (Saltarelli, M 1988:248):

liburu hori interesgarri-a d-a

book that(Abs) interesting-sg.Abs 3Abs-prs-(aux1)

‘That book is interesting.’

 

liburu horiek interesgarri-ak d-i-ra

book those(Abs) interesting-pl.Abs 3Abs-prs-aux1

‘Those book are interesting.’

 

In the case of indefinite noun phrases, adjectives used predicatively may also be marked to agree in number. Here there is a potential conflict between the grammatical and semantic plurality of the noun. If the indefinite noun phrase is logically plural and, for example, has a numeral or quantifier as a complement, then there are two choices in the marking of the predicate adjective. Agreement in number may be simply omitted or the adjective may be specified as plural (Saltarelli, M 1988: 248):

herri horr-etan gizon gutxi d-i-ra aberats

town that-loc man few(Abs) 3Abs-prs-(aux1) rich(Abs)

‘Few men in that town are rich.’

 

herri horr-etan gizon gutxi d-i-ra aberats-ak

town that-loc man few(Abs) 3Abs-prs-(aux1) rich-pl.Abs

‘Few men in that town are rich.’

It is also important to notice that the cases of adjective agreement are restricted only to predicative adjectives.

 

2. Anaphoric agreement

Pronouns have anaphoric agreement with their antecedents in person, number and case. (Saltarelli, M 1988: 96):

Ne-re ama-k ni-ri hura eros-i d-it

1sg.-gen mother-sg.Erg 1sg.-Dat 3sg.Abs buy-prf. 3Abs-(prs.-aux2)-1sg.Dat-(3sg.Erg)

‘My mother has bought it for me.’

In general, there are no third-person pronouns, and demonstratives are used instead that perform the function of 3 person pronouns and agree in person, number and case with its noun antecedent (Saltarelli, M 1988: 213):

ba-z-en behin gizon bat eta hon-ek bi seme z-it-u-en

emp-3Abs-(pst-be)-pst once man a(Abs) and 3sg.-Erg two son(Abs) 3sg.Erg-(pst-3Abs)-Abs.pl.-have-pst ...

‘Once there was a man and he had two sons ...’

But it is only in rare cases when 3 person pronouns are found explicit in the sentence. In most cases they are pro-dropped the same way as other pronouns. Thus as we will see in the next subsection, the three way indexing of the core grammatical functions on the verb licenses a three-way pro-drop as shown in the following examples

(ItziarLaka 1993:24):

ikus-i n-au-zu

see-prf. 1sg.Abs-aux2-2sg.Erg

‘You have seen me.’

 

(L.L.S.Cheng & H.Demirdache 1993: 72):

ema-n d-ieza-io-ke-Æ

give-prf. 3sg.Abs-aux2-3sg.Dat-mod-1sg.Erg-(prs)

‘I can give it to him her.’

 

3. Indexation or cross-referencing

Verbs in Basque reveal indexation/ cross-referencing with arguments (the core grammatical functions: Subject, DO and IO expressed either by noun phrases or pronouns) and in two instances with non-arguments (addressee agreement and absolutive agreement). We’ll consider the categories involved in this agreement in the next section but before that we should introduce the verbal morphology in Basque.

The verbs in Basque are morphologically the most complex of all lexical categories. Depending on their mode of conjugation, they are classified into synthetic or periphrastic verbs. The synthetic verbs form a small set. Most of the verbs in this set are the most common ones, like joan ‘to go’, ibilli ‘to walk’, etorri ‘to come’, ekarri ‘to bring’ eraman ‘to carry’, ikusi ‘to see’.

Nowadays, the synthetic verb class counts around twenty verbs. Their root can serve as a base around which tense (past, non-past), modality markers (if any) and agreement markers of person (1, 2, 3), number (singular, plural), case (Ergative, Absolutive and Dative) are distributed (Manandise, E 1988: 24):

Zu-k ni n-a-rama-zu

2sg.Erg 1sg.Abs 1sg.Abs-prs.-carry-2sg.Erg

‘You carry me.’

Periphrastic verbs consist of a non-finite form marked at most for aspect (perfective, imperfective, future) plus a finite auxiliary; the auxiliary is marked for tense and mood and carries all agreement. Here is an example with a periphrastic verb (from Saltarelli, M 1988:238):

ni-k aita-ri diru-a eska-tu d-io-t

‘I have asked father for (some) money’.

It is important to notice that verbal morphology is overwhelmingly periphrastic in Basque.

The relative ordering of the morphemes within an inflected form is fixed and uniform across all varieties of Basque. The order in which the inflectional morphemes appear on a synthetic verb or auxiliary of a periphrastic verb is schematized below (from Itziar Laka 1993: 35):

Summarizing the evidence for different types of agreement we can say that Basque reveals a typologically common system of anaphoric agreement, and a very rich system of indexing or cross-referencing of the categories of the core grammatical functions on the verb in contrast to relatively poor developed system of concord. Therefore, it is interesting to consider what categories are evidenced in indexing in Basque.

Indexation / cross-referencing is extensive in Basque: a finite verb obligatorily agrees in person, number and case with its subject, with its direct object (if any), and with its indirect object (if any). Agreement is usually Ergative-Absolutive: intransitive subjects and transitive objects marked by absolutive case are indexed by prefixes for absolutive on the verb; transitive subjects having ergative case are indexed by a suffix for ergative; and finally indirect objects are cross-references by suffix for dative.

The analysis of verb agreement in Basque also reveals that finite verbs can optionally be marked to agree by gender with an addressee addressed with the intimate (informal) second-person singular pronoun. It is also important to specify that Basque doesn’t have grammatical gender in its nominal and pronominal systems. Thus we find out that with respect to informal second person, verbal morphology indicates gender distinction shown in the following examples (Saltarelli, M 1988: 241):

Pello, hi-k esa-n al d-u-k hala-ko astakeria?

‘Pello, have you said such a stupid thing?’

Miren, hi-k esa-n al d-u-n hala-ko astakeria?

‘Miren, have you said such a stupid thing?’

There are two instances of agreement in Basque that do not reflect a relation with an argument in the sentence.

(a) The first case of the non-argument agreement is ‘addressee agreement’: the inflected form displays a morpheme that agrees with the addressee of the speech situation (and therefore, it is always a second person agreement marker). This type of agreement is optional, and it is usually reserved for situations of familiarity with the addressee, although in some dialects it can display degree of formality. There are two examples of this ‘addressee agreement’ below (Itziar Laka 1993: 25):

irakasle-a etorri d-u-k

‘The professor has arrived (male addressee).’

telebist-a erosi d-i-na-t

‘I have bought a television (female addressee).’

"Addressee agreement’ unlike grammatical agreement is restricted to main clauses in many dialects (Rebuschi 1982).

(b) The second instance of non-argument agreement involves certain cases of absolutive agreement. It is often claimed that all inflected verbs in Basque must obligatorily contain absolutive agreement. The reason for this claim is that all inflected forms display either a real absolutive agreement that is related to some argument in the sentence, or otherwise they contain a third person singular agreement marker, even if there is no argument in the sentence that bears absolutive case. This pattern is illustrated in the following examples (from Itziar Laka 1993: 26):

H-ik ni ikusi n-au-k

‘You have seen me’.

H-ik Irune ikusi d-u-k

‘You have seen Irune’.

Hik ongi dantzatu d-u-k

‘You have danced well.’

Thus, the first two examples show the ‘true’ absolutive, in that the absolutive clitic is related to the absolutive argument of the sentence: in the first example, that argument is the second person singular pronoun, and hence the absolutive agreement is third person singular also; in the second example, the absolutive agreement is third person singular, and the morpheme on the verb appears in absolutive agreement position. In contrast to the first two examples, in the third example there is no argument in the sentence that has absolutive case, but the inflected form of the auxiliary verb still displays the absolutive agreement clitic d.

We have considered the principle categories indexed on the verb. Returning back to the schematic summary of the inflections on a synthetic verb or an auxiliary repeated below for convenience (from Itziar Laka 1993: 35)

an interesting observation can be made if we consider the way the indexed categories are expressed.

Thus we know that absolutive, dative and ergative agreement include: person, number, case and optionally gender (for 2sg. informal) and optionally addressee (for 2sg. informal). At the same time we know that all this information is incorporated into a single marker that is very difficult to divide into components corresponding to each of the marked category. Therefore, we may conclude that verb markers in Basque can be considered as portmanteau morphemes with high degree of fusion.

Example (from Saltarelli, M 1988:238; 197):

ni-k aita-ri diru-a eska-tu d-io-t

‘I have asked father for (some) money’.

zu-entza-ko liburu-ak hemen eros-i d-it-u-t

‘You have bought the books for you here’.

In case of anaphoric agreement we are dealing with a separate case marker that is attached to the pronoun forms. But the pronoun forms show different forms for every person and number therefore revealing the pattern of suppletion (Saltarelli, M 1988: 96):

Ne-re ama-k ni-ri hura-Æ eros-i d-it

‘My mother has bought it for me.’

Zu-k liburu bat-Æ irakurr-i d-u-zu

‘You have read a book.’

In addition, Basque reveals portmanteau morphemes for marking definiteness, number and case on noun phrases (from Itziar Laka 1993: 36):

Zu-k liburu bat-Æ irakurr-i d-u-zu

‘You have read a book.’

Zu-k liburu-a irakurr-i d-u-zu

‘You have read the book.’

Zu-k liburu-ak irakurr-i d-it-u-zu

‘You have read the books.’

  IV. The Case marking system in Basque

From the 5 types of hypothetically possible case marking systems for core grammatical functions Basque is characterized as having Ergative-Absolutive case marking system. That means it is a language where subjects of transitive verbs (A) are marked for the ergative (Erg) case and subjects of intransitives (S) and direct objects of transitives (O) are both marked for the absolutive (Abs) case. Here are some examples (J.I.Hualde & J.Ortiz de Urbina 1993:72):

Ni-Æ etorri n-aiz

‘I arrived’

Ni-k liburu-a-Æ irakurri d-u-t

‘I read the book’

In addtition to Ergative and Absolutive grammatical cases Basque as many other ergative languages reveals the marking of one more grammatical function indirect object – expressed by dative case (Dat) (J.I.Hualde & J.Ortiz de Urbina 1993:72):

Ni-k Jon-i liburu-a-Æ ema-n d-ieza-io-ke-t

‘I can give the book to John’

At the same time typological investigations reveal that languages often use two or more case marking systems depending on the type of construction that is involved. Thus Basque is not an exception. Despite a consistent use of Ergative-Absolutive case marking system Basque grammar also uses Nominative-Absolutive case marking system revealed as a split in the person agreement system cross-referencing noun phrases on the verb. Let’s consider this split in detail.

In the past tense, first and second person ergative noun phrases are cross-marked in the verb by the absolutive agreement markers when the absolutive is third person. The third person is then unmarked or marked by zero which normally corresponds to the third person singular ergative. The split is shown in the first example below and non split – in the second example below (J. Ortiz de Urbina 1989:11):

Ni-k polizi-ei harri-ak bota n-izk-i-e-n

‘I threw stones at the police.’

Gu-Æ polizi-ek harrapatu g-int-u-z-te-n

‘The police caught us.’

Summing up we can say that where the split occurs ergative nominals are cross-referenced with absolutive agreement prefixes, and absolutives are left unmarked. The resulting agreement pattern restructures the four verb classes (Abs, Abs-Dat, Erg-Abs, Erg-Abs-Dat) reducing them into two:

That means that we have a clear-cut coding distinction between A and S on the one hand, and O on the other hand, i.e. a pattern of Nominative-Accusative case system.

1, 2, 3 - person marker

sg. - singular number

pl. - plural number

prs - present tense

pst - past tense

prf - perfective

pot - potential

hab - habitual

fut - future

asp - aspect

aux1 - intransitive auxiliary

aux2 - transitive auxiliary

mod. - modal auxiliary

neg. - negative particle

comp - complementizer

Erg - ergative

Abs - absolutive

Dat - dative

gen - genetive

loc - locative

abl - ablative

all - allative

det - determiner

inform - informal

form - formal

Q - question particle

fem - feminine

masc - masculine

1. J. I. Hualde & J.Ortiz de Urbina (eds.) "Generative Studies in Basque Linguistics". Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 105;1993.

 

2. J.Ortiz de Urbina "Parameters in the Grammar of Basque". Studies in Generative Grammar, 33; 1989.

 

3. M, Saltarelli "Basque"; Croom Helm, 1988.

 

4. E. Manandise "Evidence from Basque for a new theory of Grammar". Garland publishing. 1988.

 

5. World Wide Web Page: http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/larryt/basque.sketch.html

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Revised May 4, 1999