Etymological Dictionary of Basque - Cryptm.org

12 R. L. Trask
The language is strongly agglutinating and overwhelmingly suffixing, though a handful of
fossilized inflectional prefixes occur, mostly in the verbal morphology. But most verb-forms
are periphrastic: all verbs have periphrastic forms, and most verbs have only periphrastic
forms. Only a handful of verbs have any synthetic (non-periphrastic) forms: about a dozen in
the modern spoken language, though 16th-century texts show about sixty verbs with synthetic
forms. A few of these verbs are used as finite auxiliaries in constructing periphrastic forms,
and some of these now have no other function in the language.
Basque morphology is entirely ergative: both case-marking on noun phrases and agreement
within finite verb-forms are exclusively ergative. Ergative morphology is used with all types
and combinations of noun phrases, in all tenses, aspects and moods, in main and subordinate
clauses, and in finite and non-finite clauses. There is no split.
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The segmental phonemes of modern Basque are as follows. Most varieties have the five
vowels /a e i o u/. Most also have the six diphthongs /ai ei oi ui au eu/; these are not distinct
from the corresponding vowel sequences, but they count as single syllables for all
phonological purposes. The recently extinct Roncalese dialect had contrastive nasalized
versions of all five vowels. The Zuberoan dialect adds a sixth vowel, front rounded //,
notated , and it also has contrastive nasalized versions of all six, though nasalized /õ/ is
absent from some varieties. Nasalized diphthongs /ãu ẽu ãi õi/ also occur in R, but not in Z.
Nasalized vowels are notated in this dictionary with a tilde: .
All varieties have the voiceless plosives /p t k/, unaspirated. Eastern varieties add a palatal
plosive /c/, notated , while western varieties have phonetic [c] only as an allophone of /t/
after /i/. Northern varieties also have aspirated plosives /p h t h k h /, notated in the
traditional northern orthography, retained in this dictionary for citing northern forms.
All varieties have voiced plosives /b d g/, though these are realized phonetically as voiced
approximants in most positions. A few varieties add the extremely rare voiced palatal plosive
/J/, notated as .
All varieties have the nasals /m n N/, the last notated .
All varieties historically have a voiceless lamino-alveolar sibilant, notated , a voiceless
apico-alveolar sibilant, notated , and a voiceless palato-alveolar fricative /S/, notated .
They also have the three corresponding voiceless affricates, notated , and . In
recent centuries, many western varieties have lost the laminal/apical contrast, though this is
retained in writing. Most varieties have a fricative /f/, though a few Gipuzkoan varieties lack
this. B has a voiced laminal affricate, notated , in one or two expressive words, such as
dzast! ‘bang!’, and Z has a voiced apical affricate, notated , in a handful of loans from
Bearnese, such as edsénplü ‘example’.
Northern varieties have a phonemic aspiration /h/.
All varieties have two laterals, /l/ and /L/, the second notated . All historically have two
alveolar rhotics, a tap // (notated between vowels) and a trill /r/ (notated between
vowels but elsewhere). In many northern varieties, however, one or both of these rhotics
have become a uvular /ʀ/; this development is ignored in the dictionary.
Finally, Basque has the extraordinary diaphone |j|. According to region, this has six different
phonetic realizations: a {palatal} glide [j], a voiced {palatal} plosive [J] (merging with the
rare /J/), a voiced {palato-alveolar} affricate [dZ], a voiced {palato-alveolar} fricative [Z], a
voiceless {palato-alveolar} fricative [S] (merging with the existing /S/), and a voiceless