Basque among the world’s languages: a typological approach

Abstract

The central aim of this article is to characterize the Basque language from a typological point of view taking into account the results of latest research. Specific information regarding the phonological and grammatical structure of (mainly) Standard Basque is presented. At the same time, some of its typologically most salient properties are dealt with, such as the phonemic opposition between dorsal and apical sibilants, the activeinactive alignment of case marking, the pluripersonal agreement basis of its verbal system, the presence of allocutive paradigms in verbs, and the ways of expressing reflexivity. All these features are discussed based on our present knowledge of typological diversity and the extent to which languages may differ structurally.