Standard Basque

A Progressive Grammar

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Paperback
$110.00 US
On sale Nov 29, 2022 | 1408 Pages | 9780262546546
The first modern pedagogically oriented reference to the grammar of standard Basque (Euskara Batua), in two parts: Part 1 presents detailed grammar lessons, Part 2 glosses and supplementary materials.

A pre-Indo-European language with no known relatives, the Basque language survives in the Basque region of Spain and France, with about half a million native or near-native speakers. The local diversity of the language, with no fewer than eight different dialects, has hindered the development of a supradialectical written tradition. Twentieth-century Basque scholars recognized that the introduction of a standard language for written communication was vital for the continued existence of Basque, and the Euskaltzaindia, the Royal Academy of the Basque Language, has supervised the creation of a new shared form, Euskara Batua (“Unified Basque”), to be used as a written standard. Standard Basque: A Progressive Grammar is the first modern pedagogically oriented reference grammar in English for this new standard language. It guides the reader progressively through 33 chapters covering topics that range from orthography and pronunciation to case endings, verb forms, ergativity, and the antipassive and allocutive forms. In addition to information on the various dialects, the book includes thousands of example sentences drawn from Basque literature and extensive vocabulary listings. Most chapters conclude with exercises. Part 1 covers the grammar and Part 2 contains glosses for the example sentences and indexes.
This book was prepared for publication after the author's death by Virginia de Rijk-Chan with Armand De Coene and Fleur Veraart and the assistance of linguists at Cornell University, Leiden University, and the University of the Basque Country. The glosses and supplementary material in Part 2 were prepared by Armand De Coene.
Map of the Basque Country xvi
Foreword (Pello Salaburu) xvii
Acknowledgments (Virginia de Rijk-Chan) xxiii
1 Introduction: Orthography and Pronunciation: the Basque Noun Phrase 1
2 More about the Basque Noun Phrase 25
3 The System of Locative Case Endings 49
4 The Synatx of Location Nouns 69
5 The Grammar of Adnominal Forms 89
6 Personal Pronouns: Synthetic Conjugation of Intransitive Verbs 111
7 Periphrastic Conjugatlion of Intransitive Verbs 135
8 Modal Particles; Topic; Focus and Constituent Order 161
9 Synthetic Present of Transitive Verbs; Ergativity; Demonstratives 187
10 Synthetic Past of Transitive Verbs; Universal Quantifiers 213
11 Adverbs of Manner and Degree 233
12 Transitivity 259
13 The Partitive; the Verb egin and Its Complements; gabe 289
14 Object Complements of *edun; Modal Verbs 317
15 Dative Agreement; Reflexives and Reciprocals 343
16 Causatives and Gerundives 375
17 Conditionals; the Prolative 413
18 Direct and Indirect Questions; Finite Complement Clauses 439
19 Relative Clauses 471
20 Time Adverbials 509
21 The Subjunctive 547
22 Imperatives and Jussives 569
23 Causal, Explanatory, and Concessive Clauses 599
24 Expressing Potentiality 635
25 Complex Predicates; Transitive Predication and Predicatives 671
26 Comparatives 699
27 Use of the Instrumental Case 737
The Unfinished Chapters 779
28 Indefinite Pronouns and Related Matters; the Synthetic Future Tense 781
29 Allocutive Verb Forms and Their Use; Nonfinite Sentential Complements 809
30 Coordination 829
31 Compounds 853
32 Reduplication; Parasuffixes, Prefixes, and Paraprefixes 877
33 Additional Derivational Suffixes 897
Key to the Exercises 925
Vocabulary 953
A. Basque-English 953
B. English-Basque 981
Bibliography 995
Abbreviations 995
A Note on the Biblical Sources 995
A. References 996
B. Sources 1002
Rudolf P. G. de Rijk (1937-2003) brought the study of the Basque language into the generative syntax tradition with his MIT Ph.D. dissertation on Basque relative clauses in 1972. He taught at Leiden University in the Netherlands until his retirement in 2002.

About

The first modern pedagogically oriented reference to the grammar of standard Basque (Euskara Batua), in two parts: Part 1 presents detailed grammar lessons, Part 2 glosses and supplementary materials.

A pre-Indo-European language with no known relatives, the Basque language survives in the Basque region of Spain and France, with about half a million native or near-native speakers. The local diversity of the language, with no fewer than eight different dialects, has hindered the development of a supradialectical written tradition. Twentieth-century Basque scholars recognized that the introduction of a standard language for written communication was vital for the continued existence of Basque, and the Euskaltzaindia, the Royal Academy of the Basque Language, has supervised the creation of a new shared form, Euskara Batua (“Unified Basque”), to be used as a written standard. Standard Basque: A Progressive Grammar is the first modern pedagogically oriented reference grammar in English for this new standard language. It guides the reader progressively through 33 chapters covering topics that range from orthography and pronunciation to case endings, verb forms, ergativity, and the antipassive and allocutive forms. In addition to information on the various dialects, the book includes thousands of example sentences drawn from Basque literature and extensive vocabulary listings. Most chapters conclude with exercises. Part 1 covers the grammar and Part 2 contains glosses for the example sentences and indexes.
This book was prepared for publication after the author's death by Virginia de Rijk-Chan with Armand De Coene and Fleur Veraart and the assistance of linguists at Cornell University, Leiden University, and the University of the Basque Country. The glosses and supplementary material in Part 2 were prepared by Armand De Coene.

Table of Contents

Map of the Basque Country xvi
Foreword (Pello Salaburu) xvii
Acknowledgments (Virginia de Rijk-Chan) xxiii
1 Introduction: Orthography and Pronunciation: the Basque Noun Phrase 1
2 More about the Basque Noun Phrase 25
3 The System of Locative Case Endings 49
4 The Synatx of Location Nouns 69
5 The Grammar of Adnominal Forms 89
6 Personal Pronouns: Synthetic Conjugation of Intransitive Verbs 111
7 Periphrastic Conjugatlion of Intransitive Verbs 135
8 Modal Particles; Topic; Focus and Constituent Order 161
9 Synthetic Present of Transitive Verbs; Ergativity; Demonstratives 187
10 Synthetic Past of Transitive Verbs; Universal Quantifiers 213
11 Adverbs of Manner and Degree 233
12 Transitivity 259
13 The Partitive; the Verb egin and Its Complements; gabe 289
14 Object Complements of *edun; Modal Verbs 317
15 Dative Agreement; Reflexives and Reciprocals 343
16 Causatives and Gerundives 375
17 Conditionals; the Prolative 413
18 Direct and Indirect Questions; Finite Complement Clauses 439
19 Relative Clauses 471
20 Time Adverbials 509
21 The Subjunctive 547
22 Imperatives and Jussives 569
23 Causal, Explanatory, and Concessive Clauses 599
24 Expressing Potentiality 635
25 Complex Predicates; Transitive Predication and Predicatives 671
26 Comparatives 699
27 Use of the Instrumental Case 737
The Unfinished Chapters 779
28 Indefinite Pronouns and Related Matters; the Synthetic Future Tense 781
29 Allocutive Verb Forms and Their Use; Nonfinite Sentential Complements 809
30 Coordination 829
31 Compounds 853
32 Reduplication; Parasuffixes, Prefixes, and Paraprefixes 877
33 Additional Derivational Suffixes 897
Key to the Exercises 925
Vocabulary 953
A. Basque-English 953
B. English-Basque 981
Bibliography 995
Abbreviations 995
A Note on the Biblical Sources 995
A. References 996
B. Sources 1002

Author

Rudolf P. G. de Rijk (1937-2003) brought the study of the Basque language into the generative syntax tradition with his MIT Ph.D. dissertation on Basque relative clauses in 1972. He taught at Leiden University in the Netherlands until his retirement in 2002.

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