William H. Jacobsen’s contribution to Basque accentuation and historical morphology

Markina Basque

“…The accentual system of Markina Basque was described in detail in Hualde (2000), see also Gandiaga Ibarzabal (2014). Like in many other Bizkaian varieties, there is an underlying contrast between accented and unaccented words or morphemes (Hualde 1988, 1991). Accented words bear an accent on a given syllable (mostly the antepenultimate in Markina) in all contexts.…”

“…//mendi-fl ak// [m,ndiSek]. For more details, see , and for the neighboring variety of Leketio, where the distribution betwen lexically accented and unaccented morphemes is essentially the same as in Markina, but the rules determining the position of accents are different, Hualde et al (1994), G. Elordieta (1997).…”

“…Duration appears to be a relevant cue to accent in this context. In this respect, it is relevant to point out that there is substantial variation among local varieties in this area regarding accent assignment rules (see Hualde 1988, 1991, 2000), which can be explained by occasional or frequent ambiguity in the anchoring of pitch accents with specific syllables.…”

“…The consonantal system of Markina Basque and the distribution of the consonants in this variety is similar to what we find in other Basque dialects; in particular, it is fairly representative of Western Basque. Compared to the neighboring variety of Lekeitio (Hualde et al 1994), Markina Basque lacks the postalveolar voiced fricative /Z/. This Lekeitio consonant systematically corresponds in Markina to the voiceless velar fricative /x/ (as in Lekeitio /Zatek5a/ 'the food' vs. Markina /xat,kue/) in word-initial position, and usually to the voiceless postalveolar fricative /S/ in word-medial position, as in Lekeitio /mendiZa/ vs. Markina /mendiSe/ 'the mountain'.…”