Commitative,Instr,Manner in Basque

A typological study of the distribution of adposition/case uses (Croft, p.9) reveals that the subsumption of comitative, instrumental and manner uses under the same adposition or case marker is quite common. So it is interesting to consider the ways of marking for these three functions in Basque.

The syntactic and semantic function of a nominal expression in Basque is indicated by a case suffix or a postposition following the noun phrase. Thus we find that all the three given functions (Comitative, Instrumental and Manner) are marked by a case suffix that is attached to the form of the noun. Though there is a split between them into two groups where Comitative function is expresses by suffix ‘–kin’ and the two other functions that are marked by a different suffix ‘-z’. Let us discuss the three functions in detail.

Comitative phrases are marked by the comitative case suffix –kin¹, which also requires a genitive base to be attached to as shown in the following examples (Saltarelli, 1988, p.159):

1. nere senargai-arekin joa-n n - in – tz - en Italia-ra

my fiance - s.com. go -prf ls.A- pst -auxl- pst Italy-all

"I went to Italy with my fiancé."

2. ume-a bere aita - rekin d – a - go

child-s.A his farther - s.com 3A-prs- be

"The child is with his farther."

3. nere lagun – eki - ko harreman-ak on -ak d – i - ra

"My relationships with my friends are good."

Instrumental NPs are marked by the modal/instrumental case suffix –z², as in the sentences below (Saltarelli, 1988, p.158):

4. esku -z zati-tzen d - u - t ogi- a, ez laban-ez

"I sliced the bread with (my) hand(s) not with a knife."

5. oin-ez ibil-tze -a oso osasuntutsu-a d-a

6. bi esku- ez hel-du n-io-n, eror ez z-e-di-n

Noun phrases expressing manner are usually marked by the modal/instrumental case suffix –z³, and, less productively, by the locative as in the examples below (Saltarelli, 1988, p.164-165):

7. poz haundi-z ikusi-ko z-a-it-u-t

pleasure great -mod see - fut 2A-prs-Ap-aux2-ls.E

"I will see you with great pleasure".

8. neke-z buka-tu ahal izan-go d-u-t lan-a bihar-ko

difficulty-mod finish-prf able be-fut 3A-(prs)-aux2-ls.E work-s.A tomorrow-dst

"I will (only) be able to finish the work by tomorrow with difficulty."

9. Modu on-ean esa –n -da, gauza-k errez-ago har-tzen d-i-ra

"Things are more easily accepted if said in a good way."

Hence, as we found out the case marking overlaps for the instrument and manner functions and differs from the case marking for the comitative.

On the other hand, we can find in grammar books that there is some confusion in some dialects in the use of the instrumental/modal and comitative case markers, with one of the cases being extended to include usages restricted to the other in the standard language⁴. This is also proved by grammar textbooks for Basque learners where there is special section highlighting the difference between the two cases and referring to persistent errors of the learners and speakers⁵ who use one of the cases to mark the three functions.

I suggest that the interesting phenomenon of mixing the two cases can be interpreted as a form of a transfer error coming from other languages where the three functions are marked the same way.

Verb morphology

1, 2, 3 – person marker

s. - singular number

pl. - plural number

Ap - absol. pluralizer

prs - present tense

pst - past tense

prf - perfective

hab - habitual

fut - future

aux1 - intransitive auxiliary

aux2 - transitive auxiliary

neg. - negative particle

comp - complementizer

E - ergative

A - absolutive

D - dative

com - comitative

mod - modal/ instrument

all - allative

loc - locative

dst - destinative