A note on Basque participles

• Autores: William Haddican
• Localización: Anuario del Seminario de Filología Vasca Julio de Urquijo: International journal of basque linguistics and philology, ISSN 0582-6152, Vol. 43, Nº. 1-2, 2009 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Beñat Oihartzabali gorazarre - Festchrift for Bernard Oyharçabal), págs. 423-434
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This paper develops and extends a unified account of two different guises of participial affixes in Basque suggested in Haddican (2007). The affixes -tu/-i/-n/-Ø are traditionally described as �participial� affixes or perfective markers in view of the fact that on main verb complements of finite auxiliaries, they obligatorily cooccur with a perfective interpretation. Nevertheless, in non-finite embeddings, these affixes do not force perfective interpretation, and instead behave as infinitival markers. It is proposed that the affixes -tu/-i/-n/-Ø are merged as infinitival heads, and that the perfective guise of these elements involves raising of the verb root+-tu/-i/-n/-Ø to a null perfective head. Indirect evidence in favour of this proposal comes from the behaviour of these affixes in central dialects.