Basque

Introduction

Basque is a language isolate spoken in the Pyrenees by approximately 700,000 people on either side of the France-Spain border. It is an agglutinating language with an extensive case system and verbal morphology.

Phonology

Point of Articulation	Stop	Nasal	Trill	Tap	Fricative	Lateral	Approximant	Affricate
Bilabial	p b	m
Labiodental					f (1)
Alveolar	t d	n	rr	r	s z (2)	l		ts tz
Post-Alveolar					x			tx
Palatal	tt dd	ñ				ll
Velar	k g				j

1. f is quite rare, and mostly occurs in loan words such as kafe. It is arguably not a sound originally present in Basque
2. the distinction between s and z is not one of voicing, but rather s is apical (the tongue tip rather than the blade creates the sound). s sounds somewhat like [S].

Voiced stops are also often softened inside words until they become fricatives (b -> B, d -> D, g -> G) or vanish entirely. The Basque vowel system is a standard i e a o u similar to Spanish, with no distinction for length, and no nasal vowels (except in one dialect). There are several diphthongs including eu au ai ei.

The Noun Phrase

The constituents of the Noun Phrase are ordered as follows:

relative_clause noun adjective adjective .... determiner

Every noun phrase must have a determiner and in almost every case it has exactly one. Most go at the end of the NP, but numbers greater than one and certain others such as zein "which" precede the NP. Note that Basque is somewhat unusual in that the heavy relative clause precedes the noun while adjectives follow it.

The Case System

The Determiner -a

The default determiner in Basque, often translated as "the", is the suffix -a added onto the end of the noun phrase. THis often combines with the case affixes. For example:

autobusa
autobus-a
bus-NP
the bus

autobusean
autobus-ean
bus-loc
in the bus

If these did not combine with would have *autobusan.

Cases

Basque has a large number of case affixes, including:

• Ergative
• Absolutive
• Dative
• Instrumental
• Inessive
• Allative
• Possessive Genitive (1)
• Genitive

1. The genitive and possessive genitive have different functions. The genitive is used for such things as origin (and never with animates), whereas the possessive genitive is used for possession and in the construction of some post-positional phrases.

The case endings in Basque always apply to noun phrases, and since adjectives always follow their noun this means that it is often not the noun itself which recieves the case marking. It is also common for determiners to recieve the case marking. Many of the determiners have slightly irregular case forms. For example:

kalean
kale-a-n
street-NP-loc
In the street

kale batean
kale bat-ean
street one-loc
In a street

kale zaharrean
kale zahar-ean
street old-loc
In the old street

The case system reflect number with a three way distinction: case ending with article (always singular), indefinite number (when the number is specified by a determiner or number elsewhere in the NP), and plural number. For example:

Ergativity

Basque is probably most famous for being an ergative language (I have often seen it used as an example). What this means (in the case of Basque) is that in transitive clauses the Patient is unmarked, as is the single argument of an intransitive verb, and the Actor takes a separate marker. Some examples:

mutila joan da
mutil-a joan da
boy-NP go pres.3st.sing.abs
the boy goes

mutilak kafesnea nahi luke
mutil-a-k kafesne-a nahi luke
boy-NP-erg coffee-NP want cond.3rd.abs.3rd.erg
the boy would like some coffee

As you can see, in the transitive sentence the Actor (the boy) takes an extra marker -k, whereas the Patient (coffee) does not.

This article is unfinished... I'll add more later if noone else does.