Hybrid intransitives in Basque

Abstract

This paper deals with a group of agentive verbs in Eastern dialects of Basque that show mixed unergative and unaccusative properties. Although they pattern with unergatives in certain aspects, they combine with an absolutive subject and the auxiliary 'be', contrary to what one would expect for Basque unergative verbs. Additionally, they behave like unaccusatives in a number of other tests, such as in their inability to take cognate objects and in allowing partitive subjects. The analysis put forward in this paper accounts for the hybrid nature of these verbs. In particular, we claim that their subject is introduced in the specifier of vP, and that it is coindexed with a thematic but non-pronounced argument of Voice. As a consequence, the subject shows both external and internal properties. This paper thus challenges the mutually exclusive external/internal division of the subject in intransitive verbs and argues that intransitive verbs can be classified into more groups than just two, as also argued elsewhere. Additionally, it argues that the different types of intransitive verbs are grammatically encoded and shaped by different versions of Voice and v. Thus, this analysis assumes the typology of Voice proposed by Schäfer (2008) and developed by Alexiadou, Anagnostopoulou and Schäfer (2015), and extends it to the functional head v.

The role of frequency in the acquisition of structured variation: The case of Basque ergativity

“… 1. It bears to note that simple unergatives tend to be variable in case assignment; while western varieties (those spoken in the Spanish territory) favor ergative subjects eastern varieties favor absolutive subjects (Pineda & Berro, 2020). …”

Variation in the production of Basque ergativity: Change or stable variation?

“…The variation in Basque ergativity has been extensively examined in syntactic theory (Preminger, 2012; Rezac et al, 2014), historical linguistics (Aldai, 2009), child language acquisition (Austin, 2007, 2013; Ezeizabarrena & Larrañaga, 1996), and psycholinguistics (Díaz et al, 2016; Zawiszewski et al, 2011). In particular, the syntactic status of unergative verbs (Bobaljik, 1993; Hale & Keyser, 1993) shows a clear dialectal divide (see Berro & Etxepare, 2017; Pineda & Berro, 2020 for recent discussions). For the purposes of this study, we focus on the Western variety, which would favor the assignment of ergative case marking in unergative verbs, especially among those verbs expressing volitional acts (e.g., dantzatu/dantza egin ‘to dance,’ jolastu ‘to play’), verbs of emission (e.g., dirdiratu ‘to glitter,’ argitu ‘to shine,’ irakitu ‘to boil’), meal-related verbs (e.g., bazkaldu ‘to lunch,’ afaldu ‘to have dinner’), and bodily processes (e.g., zurrungan egin ‘to do snore’) (Berro & Etxepare, 2017:19).…”

Person matters in impersonality

“…Transitive verbs require * edun , whereas intransitives can choose between the two. Broadly speaking, agentive or unergative verbs require * edun , while patientive or unaccusative verbs select izan (Levin 1983; see Pineda & Berro 2020 for a recent approach). Albizu 2001b and Arregi 2004 argue that * edun shows up when ergative agreement marking is present in the auxiliary.…”