Daniel Fairchild
Morphology Final Paper
December 13, 2000

Basque, or Euskara as it is known to native speakers, is a non-Indo-European language spoken by about 600,000 people in Spain and France around the Bay of Biscay. Despite innumerable attempts over the years to prove otherwise, it is generally accepted these days that Basque arose in situ and has no relatives among living languages.

Now we move on to the important stuff. Basque is a highly inflected language that exhibits extensive agreement between nouns and verbs. It uses a large number of case markings, most notably the absolutive, the ergative, and the dative, but also including the instrumental, the genitive, the comitative, the locative, the ablative, and the allative, as well as some compound cases. Unlike many languages which make extensive use of case endings, though, Basque attaches its case endings only to noun phrases, and not to nouns. The general structure of a noun phrase is as follows:
(complex modifier)-(type 1 determiner)-(noun)-(adjective)-(type 2 determiner)-(number)-(case)
Note that the only part of the phrase that is actually required is one of the two types of determiner (Trask 89); everything else is either not required or can be a zero morpheme. Something else is always required; it just isnŐt specified as to what it has to be. Type 1 determiners and type 2 determiners are simply two different classes to which all determiners belong. In nearly all cases a noun phrase can only have either a type 1 determiner or a type 2 determiner, not both.

Here are some examples (note: all examples are given in standard orthography):

Example	Breakdown	Gloss
mendi-a-Ø	mountain-DefSg-Abs	the mountain (abs.)
The absolutive case is used for the subject of an intransitive verb or the direct object of a transitive verb.
mendi-a-k	mountain-DefSg-Erg	the mountain (erg.)
The ergative case is used for the subject of a transitive verb.
mendi-ak-Ø	mountain-DefPl-Abs	the mountains (abs.)
mendi-e-k	mountain-DefPl-Erg	the mountains (erg.)
(The plural definite article is usually -e, but in the absolutive case it is -ak instead, which is homophonous with the -a-k of the singular ergative; these are often marked by different stress patterns, however. (Ortiz de Urbina 61))
mendi-a-ri	mountain-DefSg-Dat	the mountain (dative)
The dative case is used for the indirect object of a verb.
mendi-a-z	mountain-DefSg-Inst	the mountain (instrumental)
The instrumental case is used for the instrument of an action; that is, something that is used to do something. It is also the "everything else" case that is used when no other case seems to fit.
mendi-a-rekin	mountain-DefSg-Com	with the mountain
The comitative case is used for accompaniment, and generally means 'with' or 'in the company of.'
mendi-a-ren	mountain-DefSg-Gen	the mountain's or of the mountain
The genitive case is used for possessors.
mendi-a-n	mountain-DefSg-Loc	in the mountain or on the mountain or at the mountain
The locative case is used to express position in space or time; its exact meaning depends on the context.
mendi-Ø-tik	mountain-DefSg-Abl	out of the mountain or from the mountain or away from the mountain
The ablative case is used for the source of motion. Note how the article disappears; this happens in allative case as well. The reason for this is unlear, but it seems to be historical.
mendi-Ø-ra	mountain-DefSg-All	to the mountain
The allative case is used for the goal of motion.
Ø-gorri-a-Ø	Ø:-red-DefSg-Abs	the red one (abs.)
(Here we see the lack of necessity of the noun.)
bi mendi-Ø	two mountain-Abs	two mountains (abs.)
bi mendi-a-Ø	two mountain-DefSg-Abs	the two mountains (abs.)
This is the one case in which two determiners can co-occur: the combination of a numeral with a definite article (Trask 90).
Bilbo-Ø-ko kale zahar hori-ek-Ø	Bilbao-Loc-ko street old that-Pl-Abs	those old streets in Bilbao
(-ko is a special relational suffix that can attach to any adverbial phrase to form a complex adjectival phrase, which then can be placed in the complex modifier slot in a noun phrase.)
mendi-e-ta-ko-Ø-a-ren-Ø-a-ri	mountain-DefPl-Loc-ko-Ø-DefSg-Gen-Ø-DefSg-Dat	to the one of the one in the mountains

Morphemes	Glosses
mendi	mountain
-a	the (singular)
-e or -ak	the (plural)
-k	(ergative)
-Ø	(absolutive)
gorri	red
Bilbo	Bilbao
kale	street
zahar	old
hori	that
-ek	(plural)
-ri or -i	(dative)
-z	(instrumental)
-rekin or -ekin	(comitative)
-ren or -en	(genitive)
-n	(locative)
-ta	(locative plural) (This is normally -tan, but the -n disappears sometimes, as -ns are wont to do in Basque.)
-tik	(ablative)
-ra	(allative)
-ko	See the note on -ko above; it is used very extensively in Basque, with large variations in its meaning depending on the context. It would easily be possible to write a long paper solely on how -ko can be analyzed.

Now that we've seen how noun phrases work (at least the basics; there isn't room to go into all the fascinating details here), let's move on to verbs and agreement. Agreement between verbs and their arguments is very extensive in Basque; a verb must always agree with its subject and with any objects (direct or indirect) that it has.

Almost all finite verb forms are formed periphrastically by a combination of some non-finite form, most often a perfective participle, an imperfective participle, or a future participle, with some auxiliary verb, usually izan 'to be' (used with intransitive verbs) or *edun 'to have' (used with transitive verbs). (*Edun is defective, and its non-finite forms are supplied either by izan or ukan 'to have.') There are a few verbs (about a dozen which actually occur in common usage) whose finite forms are formed synthetically, but they will not be treated here. In general, a finite verb looks something like this:
Verb root-Aspect Absolutive-tense-(n)-Auxiliary root-(flag-Dative)-(Ergative)-(tense)
Note the optional tense marker on the end of the verb; this is used of the verb; this is used only in the past tense, for which it is required. The flag is simply an extra morpheme which is required before a dative marker. However, many of the required elements (the aspect, the first tense marker, the flag, and even the auxiliary root) can disappear sometimes, for complex reasons.

And now for some more examples:

Example	Breakdown	Gloss
ikus-i d-Ø-u-gu	see-Perf 3SgAbs-Pres-root-1PlErg	We have seen him/her/it. or We saw him/her/it (earlier today).
joan-Ø g-i-n-Ø-en	go-Perf 1PlAbs-Past-n-root-Past	We had gone. or We went (before today).
Note how the root of the auxiliary, izan, is actually a zero morpheme here. Also note how the morpheme which indicates the perfect participle is different in the first two examples. This morpheme varies wildly depending on the verb; there are four basic classes of verb in this respect: those which take -i, like ikusi 'see' and etarri 'bring'; those which take -tu, like hartu 'take' and saldu 'sell'; those which just take a zero morpheme, like ito 'drown' and bota 'throw'; and those which also take a zero morpheme, but whose stems end in an -n which disappears in certain circumstances, like joan 'go' and eman 'give' (Trask 103). There does not seem to be any conditioning of which verbs fall into which classes.
ni mendi-a-ri joan-Ø-go n-a-tza-i-o	I mountain-DefSg-Dat go-Perf-Fut 1SgAbs-Pres-root-flag-Dat	I will go to the mountain.
joa-ten n-a-iz	go-Imp 1SgAbs-Pres-root	I go (regularly).
ikus-i-ko z-i-n-du-da-n	see-Perf-Fut 2SgAbs-Past-n-root-1SgErg-Past	I was going to see you.
Kepa-Ø Estherr-ekin joan-Ø z-Ø-Ø-en	Peter-Abs Esther-Com go-Perf 3SgAbs-Past-root-Past	Peter went with Esther.
(Proper nouns are inflected just like ordinary noun phrases, with the exception that they do not require a determiner.)
Kepa-k mendi-a-Ø ikus-i d-i-tu-Ø	Peter-Erg mountain-DefSg-Abs see-Perf 3SgAbs-Pres-root-3SgErg	Peter sees the mountain (regularly). or Peter has seen the mountain.

Morphemes	Glosses
ikus	see (radical form)
joan	go (radical form)
-i or -Ø	(perfective aspect)
-ko or -go	(future aspect)
-ten	(imperfective aspect)
i- or Ø-	(past tense (1st marker))
a- or Ø-	(present tense)
d- or z-	(third person singular absolutive)
z-	(second person singular absolutive)
n-	(first person singular absolutive)
g-	(first person plural absolutive)
-Ø	(third person singular ergative)
-da	(first person singular ergative)
-gu	(first person plural ergative)
-n	(past tense (2nd marker)
-i	(flag)
-o	(dative)
Kepa	Peter
Esther	Esther

(I'm not even bothering to list the sundry forms of the auxiliary roots; there are just too many of them. See the first list for the other morphemes not listed here.)

Most of the analyses presented here are open to debate. I used information from all of my sources, which often disagreed, as well as my own interpretations in some cases, when I thought it made more sense. In general, there seems to be a great deal of disagreement on how Basque works, with regards to both morphology and other areas.

In conclusion, Basque is fun. I've only gone into the most basic of the basics here, but it's enough to get a bit of a feel for how everything goes together.

Abbreviations Guide

Please send comments or (preferably simple) questions to daniel@sccs.swarthmore.edu.

Bibliography

Herring, Jon. Introduction to the inflectional morphology of Basque verbs. 14 Feb. 1999 http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/lab/nlp/gazdar/teach/atc/1999/web/jonhe/index.html.

Ortiz de Urbina, Jon. Parameters in the Grammar of Basque. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Foris Publications, 1989.

Trask, R. L. The History of Basque. London: Routledge, 1997.