Ergative & Basque

[Larry Trask]

On Sat, 17 Jul 1999, Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen wrote:

[on my Basque example with `have' as the transitive auxiliary]

> If there is no passive expressed as belonging to the agent in this,
> what then is the "have" verb doing here?

The Basque construction is parallel in form to the `have' perfects and
past-tenses found in a number of Romance and Germanic languages (at
least).  In English, `I have drunk the wine' is still strictly a
perfect, with no past-tense reading possible.  In French, the similarly
constructed <J'ai bu le vin> is primarily an ordinary past tense, though
a perfect reading is possible.  Other languages exhibit various
intermediate stages here.  Castilian Spanish <(Yo) he bebido el vino> is
interesting in that it functions both as a perfect and as a hodiernal
past (earlier today).  Basque <Ardoa edan dut> works like Castilian.

All these languages also allow a past-tense auxiliary, as in English
`I had drunk the wine', but again the precise value of this varies from
language to language.  In Basque it functions both as the ordinary past
tense (before today) and as a pluperfect.

> Can't the underlying construction be analyzed in a sensible way at
> all?

Well, I'm not sure what you mean by "a sensible way".  What would you
regard as a sensible analysis of English `I have drunk the wine'?

> A silly question from a complete outsider: is the translation "have"
> internally motivated? Can it express the "having" of anything other
> than a "participled" object?

Yes.  In all varieties of Basque, the auxiliary used in constructing
periphrastic forms of transitive verbs is the defective verb *<edun>,
which has no non-finite forms and whose non-finite forms are supplied
suppletively by other verbs.  In the east, this *<edun> is the ordinary
lexical verb `have', as in `I have blue eyes' or `I have a new car'.

Eastern varieties have another verb, <eduki>, which means `hold', `hold
on to', `have in one's hand', `grasp', `clutch'.  In western varieties,
however, *<edun> is generally specialized as the transitive auxiliary,
and <eduki> is the ordinary lexical verb for `have'.

Now, since *<edun> is also recorded for `have' in early texts in the
west, and since it is still possible for `have' in elevated styles in
the west today, we may reasonably surmise that *<edun> was once the
ordinary lexical verb for `have' everywhere, and that its replacement by
<eduki> in the west is an innovation there.

We may further surmise that this western innovation is a calque on
Castilian.  In Castilian, the inherited lexical verb for `have' is
<haber>, but this is now entirely specialized as an auxiliary.  The verb
<tener>, which originally meant `hold, hold on to, grasp', has become
the ordinary lexical verb for `have'.

This proposal of a calque on Castilian can be supported by another case.
In all varieties of Basque, the verb used as an auxiliary for
constructing periphrastic forms of intransitive verbs is <izan>.
Now, in eastern varieties, this <izan> is also the ordinary copular verb
`be', as in `I am a teacher' or `Your books are on the table'.

However, eastern varieties have a second verb, <egon>, whose earlier
sense is `wait', `stay', `remain'.  At least in the imperative, it still
has this sense in all varieties.  In the east, though, it has acquired a
second sense, that of copular `be' *in the following circumstances
only*: the subject is animate, and the predicate is locative or
comitative (the Basque comitative itself derives from a locative
phrase).  So, in the east, `Mary is in the kitchen', `The men are in the
fields' and `Mary is with John' all require <egon>, not <izan>.

In western varieties, however, the use of <egon> has been generalized:
it is used for `be' in *all* locative expressions, and also with all
predicates denoting states or conditions.  So, in western varieties,
`Your books are on the table', `The Guggenheim Museum is in Bilbao',
`Mary is happy', `Mary is asleep', `Mary is drunk', and so on, require
<egon>, whereas eastern varieties use <izan>.

This western usage is clearly calqued on the famous Castilian
distinction between <ser> `be' (unmarked) and <estar> `be' (in a place
or in a state).  Wherever Castilian uses <estar>, western Basque uses
<egon>.  This is true even in idiosyncratic cases.  For example,
Castilian expresses `He's dead' as <Esta' muerto>, with <estar>, and
western Basque likewise has <Hil dago>, with <egon>, while eastern
Basque has <Hila da>, with <izan>.

And this, I think, is as far back as we can go in tracing the prehistory
of the Basque periphrastic verb-forms.  As I remarked earlier, we have
no way of knowing whether these things originated as calques on Romance
or whether they are independent creations in Basque, from an unknown
source.  All I can tell you is that the modern periphrastic forms were
clearly already established in Basque by the tenth century, when we find
the first recorded verb-forms.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk