The History of Basque

by Trask,R. L.

• ISBN13: 9780415131162
• ISBN10: 0415131162
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1996-12-24
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

More than a century of specialist work has succeeded in shedding a great deal of light on the history and prehistory of Basque, but this work has, up until now, been almost entirely confined to specialist literature and not been available to general historical linguists. This book, written by an internationally renowned specialist in Basque, finally rectifies this problem. It provides a comprehensive survey of all that is known about the prehistory of Basque, including pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. It also provides a long critical evaluation of the search for relatives, as well as a thumbnail sketch of the language, a summary of its typological features, an external history and an extensive bibliography.

Table of Contents

List of figures	x	(1)
List of tables	xi	(2)
Preface	xiii	(3)
Acknowledgements	xvi	(2)
List of abbreviations	xviii	(2)
A note on citation forms	xx
1 Introduction	1	(81)
1.1 The Basque language: territory, speakers, dialects	1	(6)
1.2 The country, the people and their history	7	(28)
1.3 An external history of the language	35	(14)
1.4 Linguistic works on Basque	49	(21)
1.5 Reference books	70	(5)
1.6 Basque orthography	75	(4)
1.7 The standard language	79	(3)
2 A thumbnail sketch of the language	82	(42)
2.1 Preliminaries	82	(1)
2.2 Phonology	83	(6)
2.3 Noun phrases, the case system and postpositions	89	(10)
2.4 Adjectives and adverbs	99	(1)
2.5 The suffix-ko	100	(2)
2.6 Non-finite verb-forms	102	(1)
2.7 Finite verb-forms	103	(6)
2.8 Sentence structure	109	(2)
2.9 Valency and voice	111	(3)
2.10 Subordinate clauses	114	(2)
2.11 A typological checklist	116	(8)
3 Phonology	124	(72)
3.1 Preliminaries	124	(1)
3.2 The Pre-Basque phonological system	125	(4)
3.3 Plosives	129	(7)
3.4 Sibilants	136	(3)
3.5 Nasals	139	(3)
3.6 Laterals	142	(2)
3.7 Rhotics	144	(2)
3.8 Palatalization	146	(3)
3.9 Vowels	149	(6)
3.10 Glides	155	(2)
3.11 Aspiration	157	(6)
3.12 Consonant clusters	163	(1)
3.13 Word-accent	164	(2)
3.14 Summary of phonological changes	166	(3)
3.15 Treatment of loan words from Latin and early Romance	169	(3)
3.16 The phonotactics of Pre-Basque	172	(4)
3.17 Morpheme structure	176	(3)
3.18 The problem of the initial vowels	179	(4)
3.19 Distinctive phonology of word-formation	183	(9)
3.20 Phonological pecularities of proper names	192	(2)
3.21 Phonological treatment of recent loans	194	(2)
4 Grammar	196	(52)
4.1 Pronouns, demonstratives and the articles	196	(5)
4.2 The cases	201	(7)
4.3 Postpositions and grammatical words	208	(2)
4.4 Adjectives and adverbs	210	(1)
4.5 Non-finite verb-forms	211	(7)
4.6 Finite verb-forms: agreement and plurality	218	(5)
4.7 Finite verb-forms: tense and mood	223	(4)
4.8 Dative flags	227	(2)
4.9 Voice and valency	229	(3)
4.10 The auxiliaries	232	(2)
4.11 The allocutive forms	234	(3)
4.12 Periphrastic forms	237	(1)
4.13 Aspectual and modal auxiliaries	238	(1)
4.14 Linschmann's law	239	(1)
4.15 The complementizers	240	(1)
4.16 The suffix -ko	241	(1)
4.17 The question particles	242	(1)
4.18 Parts of speech	242	(2)
4.19 The genitive with the gerund	244	(1)
4.20 A speculative synthesis	245	(3)
5 Lexicon	248	(10)
5.1 The sources of the Basque vocabulary	248	(2)
5.2 Compounds	250	(2)
5.3 Derivatives	252	(3)
5.4 Ancient Formatives	255	(1)
5.5 Sound symbolism	256	(3)
5.6 Loans from Latin and Romance	259	(3)
5.7 Loans from other sources	262	(1)
5.8 Neologisms	263	(4)
5.9 Structured parts of the lexicon	267	(53)
5.10 Individual words of particular interest	320	(9)
5.11 Place names	329	(10)
5.12 Surnames	339	(6)
5.13 Given names	345	(4)
5.14 House names	349	(3)
5.15 The Swadesh word-list	352	(6)
6 Connections with other languages	358	(72)
6.1 Preliminaries	358	(1)
6.2 African languages	361	(3)
6.3 The `Old European' substrate	364	(3)
6.4 Indo-European	368	(10)
6.5 Iberian	378	(10)
6.6 Minoan	388	(2)
6.7 Pictish	390	(2)
6.8 Caucasian	392	(6)
6.9 Aquitanian	398	(5)
6.10 Basque and the super-families	403	(5)
6.11 Basque and `Proto-World'	408	(3)
6.12 Summary	411	(4)
6.13 The alleged influence upon Castilian Spanish	415	(15)
References	430	(17)
Index	447