Re: Two part verbs (Why They Shouldn't Make Me Wait)

> And of course those auxiliaries do have intrinsic meaning. There is a third
> construction, with the verb "to do" (egin IIRC, but you still need the aux.
> to carry tense/person etc.) that is essentially a way of creating verbs from
> some nouns-- one I remember is "sneeze + do (+ trans.aux.)" = 'to sneeze'--
> so it's formally equiv. to NOUN=DO + to do ("I did/made a sneeze")
>
> There's also a random handful of verbs that can be conjugated, i.e. without
> the use of the aux. Now that Basque is reviving and being more standardized
> and taught, I'm not sure whether they've survived.
>
>
Some of them can be used with main verbs as auxiliaries, too (at least,
I've seen examples) but it isn't common. As for whether they've
survived, yes they have so far. Particularly common are: eduki "have,
possess", joan "go", etorri "come", jakin "know" etc. However, often an
equivalent meaning can be expressed using izan or ukan as auxiliaries.
For example:

doa
3rd.abs-go
"he is going"/"he goes"

joaten da
go-IMPERF. 3rd.abs.be
"he is going"/"he goes"

For a long time Basque has been reducing the number of verbs with finite
forms, and I expect that the trend will continue as time goes by,
especially with the tendency for large numbers of new learners to
simplify a language.

>> There are (were?) a guy here who seems to know a lot more about Basque
>> than me though, and as usual I can't for the life of me remember his
>> name ('cept it being one normally used by males of the species)...
>>
>>
> I remember that too. Hopefully, he will speak up.
>
> My acquaintance with Basque depends on a 1950's grammar by one Azkue (he was
> not held in very high regard by L.Trask). Azkue was trying to present a
> standardized language too, drawing from various dialects-- I don't think his
> standard is the one used today, however.  I did a course paper once, trying
> to figure out if there was any regularity in the conjugation of the
> auxiliaries-- it was very hard to see much, at least in Azkue's forms.
> :-((((  One modern on-line course I've looked at suggests that there is
> quite a bit of regularity, identifiable morphemes etc. etc. but I'm not
> convinced-- it's often the case that in, say, a 5-phoneme form, every
> phoneme is also a morpheme. Hmmmm.
>
There are patterns, but there are also quite a lot of exceptions, and
the patterns are quite complicated. For example, the following are all
possible markers of a plural abs arguments:

-izk- Generally used when the verb also has a dative argument. Example:
gustatzen zaizkit "they are pleasing to me"

-it- Generally used with transitive verbs when there is no dative
argument. Example: hartu ditut "I took them"

-te- Normally marks plural ergative, but marks plural absolutive second
person fairly often because of the need to find a new plural marker when
the 2nd person plural developed into a singular formal. Example: zoazte
"you all go"

-z- Often marks plural abs with intransitive verbs, sometimes with
transitives too. Examples: doaz "they go", dauzkat "I have them"

And probably more that don't come to me off the top of my head.
Sometimes these may even be combined... the combination -z-te is
particularly common, as in zaituztet "I have you all", which is:

z-a-it-u-z-te-t
2ND.ABS-PRES-PLUR.ABS-ROOT-PLUR-PLUR-1ST.ERG.

The first PLUR.ABS has lost its plural meaning because of the shift from
2nd person plural to 2nd person singular formal, so the -z-te- is added
to reacquire the plural meaning.
 Not all of it is that complicated though... there are some fairly
simple patterns too. IMO, though, it's better to start off just by
memorizing the forms for all but the simplest patterns and letting your
mind sort out the patterns unconsciously as you go.

> Trask's "History of Basque" btw is required reading!!!! Absolutely
> fascinating.
>
That's one I still need to get. :( Unfortunately, my knowledge of Basque
historical linguistics is quite limited.