This article provides a sketch of Basque grammar. Basque is the language of the Basque people of the Basque Country or Euskal Herria, which borders the Bay of Biscay in Western Europe.
Noun phrases The Basque noun phrase is structured quite differently from those in most Indo-European languages.
Articles, determiners and quantifiers Determiners and quantifiers play a central role in Basque noun phrase structure. Articles are best treated as a subset of the determiners.
+ Common determiners and quantifiersSome determinersSome quantifiers -a, -a(r)- singular article -ak, -e- plural article -ok, -o- plural proximal article -(r)ik negative-polar article hau, hon- 'this' hauek, haue- 'these' hori, horr- 'that' horiek, horie- 'those' hura, har- 'that (distal)' haiek, haie- 'those (distal)' zein 'which' zer, ze 'what' beste 'other' batzuk, batzue- 'some' zenbait 'some' asko 'many' anitz 'many' gutxi 'few' guzti 'all' zenbat 'how many' hainbeste 'so many' bat 'one, a(n)' bi 'two' hiru 'three' lau 'four' bost 'five' etc.The "articles" take the form of suffixes. See the following description of their uses. The forms -a, -ak, -ok correspond to the absolutive case; in other cases, -a(r)-, -e-, -o- are used, followed by a case suffix. The negative-polar article, often called the partitive suffix, does not combine with case suffixes. When glossing examples below, these elements are referred to collectively as ART.The demonstrative stems, like the articles and unlike other nominal elements, show irregular allomorphy between singular and plural and, in the singular, between the absolutive (hau, hori, hura) and other cases (hon-, horr-, har-). The same forms function both as demonstrative determiners and demonstrative pronouns.
The articles -a, -ak, -ok, -(r)ik, demonstratives hau, hori, hura and some of the quantifiers follow the noun they determine or quantify.
Other determiners and quantifiers, including beste 'other', the interrogatives, and numerals above one or two (depending on dialect) precede the noun.
A normal noun phrase with a common noun as head must contain exactly one determiner or exactly one quantifier but not both, as in the above examples. However, the numerals may co-occur with a determiner.
The items beste 'other' and guzti 'all' do not 'fill' the determiner or quantifier position and therefore require an article, other determiner or quantifier.
The article -a, -ak acts as the default determiner, obligatory with a common noun in the absence of another determiner or quantifier (even in citation forms in popular usage).
etxea 'house' etxeak 'houses' Nola esaten da euskaraz "house"? — "Etxea". 'How do you say "house" in Basque? — "Etxe(a)".'
The article -(r)ik, traditionally called a partitive suffix (cf. French de), replaces -a, -ak in negative-polar contexts, especially with indefinite noun phrases in negative sentences. It is never treated as grammatically plural.
etxerik 'any house(s)' Ba al daukazu etxerik? 'Have you got a house?' Hemen ez dago etxerik. 'There is no house here, There aren't any houses here.' Not: *Hemen ez daude etxerik. 'There are no houses here.'
A noun phrase with a proper noun or a pronoun as head usually does not contain either a determiner or a quantifier.
Andoni 'Anthony' Tokio 'Tokyo' Wikipedia 'Wikipedia' ni 'I, me' nor? 'who?'
The absence of any determiner or quantifier from a common-noun–head noun phrase is not possible except in certain specific contexts, such as in certain types of predicate or in some adverbial expressions.
Lehendakari izendatuko dute. 'They will appoint him (as) president.' [They will name him president.] Bilbora joan zen irakasle. 'He went to Bilbao (to work) as a teacher.' [He went to Bilbao teacher.] eskuz 'by hand' [hand (esku) + by (-z)] sutan 'on fire' [fire (su) + in (-tan)]
Genitive and adjectival constructions A genitive noun phrase precedes its possessed head to express possessive or similar relationships.
Koldoren etxea 'Koldo's house' nire etxea 'my house' basoko etxea 'house in ("of") the forest'
The possessed noun phrase retains the same determination and quantification features described above for noun phrases generally.
The head noun of a possessed noun phrase may be omitted. In this case the article or other determiner is still retained, now attached to the genitival element.
Noun phrases are turned into genitives by the addition of one of two genitive case suffixes, -(r)en or -ko (see below on declension suffixes).
Koldo → Koldoren Paris → Parisko etxe-a 'house' → etxearen, etxeko (not interchangeable)
The genitive formation of personal pronouns is irregular.
ni 'I, me' → nire 'my'
-Ko (or -go) can be suffixed to a wide range of other words and phrases, many of them adverbial in function, to form adjectival expressions which behave syntactically just as genitive phrases do.
Adjectives Lexical adjectives, in contrast to adjectival expressions (see above), immediately follow the head noun but precede any article, determiner or quantifier.
When adjectives, adjectivals or genitives are used as predicates, they usually take the article (singular -a, plural -ak).
Number Basque has three numbers: singular, unmarked and plural. Unmarked appears in declension when it is not necessary to specify singular or plural, such as because it is a proper name or is next to a determiner or a quantifier. Plural markers occur in two parts of Basque grammar: in some pronouns, determiners and quantifiers and in argument indices on verbs (see Basque verbs). For nouns, it depends on how the article -a/-ak is considered: as an enclitic, nouns would be number-neutral, as a suffix, nouns would be three-numbered. An unarticled noun such as etxe rarely occurs alone and normally appears within a noun phrase containing either a determiner or a quantifier, its number is likely to be indicated by this element:
etxea 'house' (singular because of -a) etxeak 'houses' (plural because of -ak) etxe hau 'this house' (singular because of hau) etxe hauek 'these houses' (plural because of hauek) etxe bat 'one/a house' (singular because of bat) etxe batzuk 'some houses' (plural because of batzuk) hiru etxe 'three houses' (plural because of hiru)
Transitive verbs add a suffix, for example -it-, when the object of the verb is plural.
Most determiners, including the article, have distinct singular and plural forms (the latter ending in a k in the absolutive case, cited here). Most quantifiers (except bat versus batzuk) do not show such morphological variation, but many (including the numerals above one, of course) have intrinsically plural lexical meanings.
Singular: -a (article) hau, hori, hura (demonstratives) bat (quantifier)
Plural: -ak, -ok (articles) hauek, horiek, haiek (demonstratives) batzuk (quantifier) bi, hiru, lau... (numerals)
Sometimes the grammatical number of a noun phrase can be deduced only from general context or from verbal indexing
zein etxe? 'which house?' or 'which houses?'
or from the lexical or semantic noun type:
zenbat esne? 'how much milk?' (esne is a mass noun) zenbat etxe? 'how many houses?' (etxe is a quantitative noun)
Pronouns and adverbs
Personal pronouns Personal pronouns differentiate three persons and two numbers. Zu must once have been the second-person plural pronoun but is now only the polite singular, having partially displaced the original second-person singular pronoun hi, now a markedly familiar form of address. Zuek represents a repluralised derivative of zu and is now the only second-person plural pronoun.
+ Diachronic development of second-person pronounsReconstructed proto-systemAttested present-day system hi 'you (singular)'
zu 'you (plural)'hi 'you (familiar singular)'
zu 'you (polite singular)'
zu-ek 'you (plural)'
The function of third-person personal pronouns may be filled by any of the demonstrative pronouns or their emphatic counterparts in ber-.
+ Personal pronouns Singular Plural 1st person 'I/me' 'we/us' 2nd person very familiar 'you' 'you' polite or neutral 'you' 3rd person 'he/him, she/her, it' 'they/them'
Besides these ordinary personal pronouns, there are emphatic (or intensive) ones, whose forms vary considerably between dialects: the first-person singular is neu, nerau, neroni or nihaur.
Demonstrative pronouns The demonstrative determiners (see above) may be used pronominally (as indeed can all the determiners except for the articles). There are also emphatic (intensive) demonstrative pronouns beginning with ber-.
+ Demonstrative pronouns proximal medial distal Ordinary Intensive
It has often been noted that in traditional usage (but less so among modern speakers), there is often an explicit correlation between the three degrees of proximity in the demonstrative forms and the grammatical persons, such that hau is made to correspond to ni, hori to hi/zu and so on. One manifestation of this (others lie beyond the scope of this sketch) is the now old-fashioned mode of addressing persons in social positions commanding special respect (such as a priest, for example) using third-person verb forms and, for the personal pronoun, the second-degree intensive demonstrative (see the above table).
Other pronouns and correlative adverbs
+ Other pronouns and deictic adverbsPronounsPlace adverbsManner adverbsTime adverbs Demonstrative (see above)hemen 'here' hor 'there (nearby)' han 'there (distant)'honela 'like this' horrela 'like that' hala 'like that, so'orain 'now' orduan 'then'Interrogative nor? 'who?' zer? 'what?' zein? 'which one?'non? 'where?'nola? 'how?'noiz? 'when?'Indefinite norbait 'somebody' zerbait 'something'nonbait 'somewhere'nolabait 'somehow'noizbait 'sometime'Negative polarity inor 'anybody' ezer 'anything'inon 'anywhere'inola 'any way, at all'inoiz 'ever'
Further forms All the demonstrative pronouns and adverbs may be extended by the suffix -xe (-txe) which lends further emphasis: (this very thing), (exactly here), (exactly in this way), (right now). The pronouns can all be declined in any case (see below). The personal and demonstrative pronouns exhibit allomorphy between absolutive and non-zero cases. The adverbs can be adjectivalised by addition of -ko (-go), and some can also take other locative suffixes. There are two further series of indefinites, as illustrated by edonor, edonon... and nornahi, zernahi..., respectively; both series may be translated as 'whoever, wherever...' or 'anyone, anywhere...'. Negative pronouns and adverbs consist of the negative polarity series together with ez 'no' or as part of a negative sentence: inor ez 'nobody', Ez dut inor ezagutzen 'I don't know anybody' = 'I know nobody'.
Declension
Cases Basque noun phrases are followed by a case suffix, which specifies the relation between the noun phrase and its clause (playing roughly the role of prepositions in English). The most basic cases are shown here, for convenience divided into three main groups: nuclear, local (or locative) and others.
Case suffixes are attached to whatever element (noun, adjective, determiner etc.) comes last in the noun phrase according to the rules already given. The different forms or "declensions" of each case suffix given in the following tables are selected in accordance with the nature of the nominal element to which the case ending is attached, as will be explained below.
+ Nuclear casesNameMeaning/UseForms ("declensions") 1 2 3 4 Absolutive intransitive subject; transitive direct object -a -ak colspan=2 Ergative transitive subject -ak -ek-(e)k Dative recipient or affected: 'to', 'for', 'from' -ari -ei-(r)i