Features
Blue: variational pattern non-attested
Berro, Ane. 2015. Breaking verbs. From event structure to syntactic categories in Basque. Ph.D. Diss., UPV/EHU and Université Bordeaux Montaigne (UBM).
Euskaltzaindia. 2000. Hiztegi Batua. Bilbo: Euskaltzaindia.
Generalized pattern. The contrast found in the use of the verb stem and the verb’s -tu form (see property #39) is somehow blurred in the context of derived predicates like lehortu ‘to dry’ from lehor ‘dry’ and aberetu ‘to become brutish’ from abere ‘domestic animal’. The generalized pattern would be not to use the perfective participial suffix in those cases.
(1) | Ez nuke | nahi | Mikel | abere | dadin |
no 1SG.have.MOD | want | Mikel.ABS | become.brutish | (3ABS).EDIN.COMP | |
‘I wouldn’t like Mikel to become brutish.’ |
Variational pattern. In the varieties where -tu does not generally occur in the subjunctive, imperative and potential, it needs to occur in the case of derived predicates (-tu is glossed as PTCP).
(2) | Ez nuke | nahi | Mikel | aberetu | dadin |
no 1sg.have.MOD | want | Mikel.ABS | become.brutish.PTCP | (3ABS).EDIN.COMP | |
‘I wouldn’t like Mikel to become brutish.’ |
Chapter: Aspect
Keywords: aspect, derived verbs, imperative, participle, potential, subjunctive, verb


Berro, Ane. 2015. Breaking verbs. From event structure to syntactic categories in Basque. Ph.D. Diss., UPV/EHU and Université Bordeaux Montaigne (UBM).
Euskaltzaindia. 2000. Hiztegi Batua. Bilbo: Euskaltzaindia.
ABL: ablative
ABS: absolutive
ABSERG: absolutive in Ergative Displacement context
ALL: allative
ALLO: allocutive
APPL: applicative
BN: bounded
CAUS: causative
COMP: complementizer
DAT: dative
DD: dative displacement
DEST: destinative
ED: Ergative Displacement
ERG: ergative
FAM: familiar
F: feminine
GEN: genitive
IPFV: imperfective
INE: inessive
INS: instrumental
M: masculine
MOD: mood
NMLZ: nominalizer
NONFAM: non-familiar (2nd person)
NP: noun phrase
PTCP: participle
PST: past
PL: plural
POST: postposition
PROG: progressive
PROS: prospective
PRTV: partitive
REL: relational postposition
RES: resultative
SG: singular
SOC: sociative
TERM: terminative
UNBN : unbounded