Partitive Assignment in Basque

Partitive Assignment in Basque
R. P. G. de Rijk
I. PREFIXES AND SUFFIXES
This paper will deal with some of the syntax and semantics of
a particular suffix of Basque. An introductory discussion of the role
that suffixes play in Basque grammar may therefore be useful to
those readers who are not familiar with the language.
Joseph Greenberg, in his famous article Some Universals of
Grammar classifies Basque (p. 106) as an exclusively suffixing
language. If taken to imply the absence of profixes from the language,
this claim is certainly false. There are< prefixes in Basque. They play
indeed a most conspicuous role in the morphology of verbs. The
person markers of the absolutive (i.e. nominative as opposed to erga-
tive) case are prefixes: no, h-,d-; etc., as in: nator 'I am coming',
hator 'you are coming', dator 'he is coming' and similarly: nakar 'he
is bringing me', hakar 'he is bringing you', dakar 'he is bringing him'.
In some tenses and moods, the person markers of the ergative
case are also prefixes. To take just one e';Cample, we have the
following forms of the conditional: nuke 'I would have', hukek, hu-
ken 'you (male, female) would have', luke 'he (she, it) would
have'.
Other incontrovertible prefixes are: conditional ba-, as in banator
'if I am coming', banu 'if I had' and causal bait- as in bainator 'for
(or. 'since') I am coming', bainuen 'for (or. 'since') I had'.
Yet, Greenberg is not far off the mark. Inderivatipnal morpho-
logy, prefixes are extremely scarce, though, it is true, ~ot altogether
lacking. As announced by its title. I. M. Echaide's hook Tratado
de Su/ijacion, Pre/ijacion y Composicion en el Idioma Buskaro (2nd
ed., Tolosa 1931) contains a section on prefixation. Many of his
[ASJU 6,1972,130-173]
http://www.ehu.es/ojs/index.php/asju
PARTITIVE ASSIONl\1ENT 131
alleged examples, however, are not. examples of prefixation but of

composition. For instance, the formatives basa.. wild, asta- wild
and ugaz- foster-, step-, which occur e.g. in basakatu wildcat,
astamats wild raisin, ugaza1JW foster mother, are nothing but
regular allpmorphs of the nouns baso woods, asto (1) donkey
ap.d ugatz breast, used whenever they occupy the position ,of the
first ~Jement in a compound (2). .
Likewise, formations with the negative ez- as the first element,
such as ez..jakin ignorant, ez-ikasi unlessoned, ez-axol careless,
can also be considered examples of compounding, since ez occurs
as an independent word meaning not or no~
Another example of Echaide's, baldin is clearly an independent
word, for, along with the phrase iiior baldin badator if anyone.
comes, we also find bald~n iiiQr badator with the same meaning.
A more difficult case to evaluate is that of the modals al (an in~
terrogative ,for yes-no questions), bide (indicates high probability),
ate (dubitative) and omen, (<<reportedly, as they say) (3).
Azkue and other grammarians call them modal prefixes of the
finite verb, a designation that seems appropriate enough in the light
of their syntactfc behavior. Yet, personally, I would .prefer to con-
sider them as particles (i.e. independent words) that 'obligatorily turn
into proclitics' in thepresen~e of a finite verb. The reason I am
reluctant to put them down as mere prefixes is that affixes normally
(that is~ in non..metalinguistic contexts) cannot survive without a stem
supporting them, whereas some of the elements of this class can
occur independently in contexts where the finite verb has been de-
leted. So, for instance, ote in examples like the following: Nark
ikusi du? Zuk ote? Who has seen him? You perhaps? Neronek
ikusi det. -Ba ate?' 1 have seen him myself. -Really? Inork ez du
ikusi. -Ez ote? Nobody has seen him. -Really? Hark esaten due~-
(1) 'Other names of animals are used in the same way. We find e.g.: &uge-
tipula, "wild onion" (lit. "snake-onion"); otsaporru, "wild leek" (lit. "wolf-leek");
txerri-gerezi "wild cherryn (lit. "pig-cherry") and txori-tn(1)ts "wild raisin" (lit.
"bird-raisin"). For "wilQ onion" there are also the Bizcayan forms er'1'Oi-kipula
(lit. "raven-onion") and sa.p.a.kipula. (lit. "toad-:onion"). Data from Placido Mugica,
DicciQ'Ml1'io Caitellano-Vasco, ,po 1644.
(2) For the regularity of the change of final 0 to a in disyllabic first members
of compounds, see FRV,. 6.1 (i.e. Luis Michelena, Fonetica '. Hist6rii'a Vas.ca). For
the z/-tz alternation in ugatz see FHV, 14.6.
J' ' .
(3)" The glosses hete are only' a rough approximation: They do no justice to
the syntactic and semantic complexities of these items. A long and probably very
interesting dissertation could be written on this subject, preferably by 'a native
speaker. .
132 R. P. G. DE RIJK
na lege ote... euskaldunontzat? (Is) what he says ... perhaps the

law for us Basques?.
In this last example, which is taken from Mitxelenaren ldazlan
.Hautatuak (p. 397), ~he copula da is has been 'deleted by an as
yet poorly understood stylistic rule, and the remaining: particle ate
gives the sentence the rhetorical flavor it has: it is a queclarative in
the sense of Sadock (4).
My impression about these modal items is that they are on their
way to becoming prefixes, but have not quite made it yet all the
'way (5).
(4) See Jerrold M. Sadock, "Quec1aratives", published in: Pape.rs from. the-
Seventh RegiPmJ;l Meeting .Chicago Linguistic ~ Society, (1971), p. 223-231.
(5) In past centttries_ the positional restrictions on these moeal particles were
less stringent than they are nowadays.
In the first work printed in Basque, Etxepare's Linguae Vasconum Primitiae
(1545) ote is not attested, but, about a hundred years later, we find it oCl'utring
several times in Oihenarte's poetry, published in 1657. There ote. (pronounced othe)
could either precede or follow the finite verb. Among the examples are:
ba daidita othe hu,ts ... ? ("Would 1 be m~king a mistake ?") (0.11; = 11, p. 130).
.... hutsik othe daidita? ("Would 1 be making a mistake ?") (0.130; = XIII, p. 172).
Amets al'egw. crote nik e,nzuna ("Is what I have heard a cream or the truth ?")
(0.57; =- VI, p. 149). Here d'ote is poetic licence fOir da ote.
Azkue in his Morfologia Vasca (11, p. 469) claims that sentences like Badoa ote
("Maybe he' is (already) coming") and Eztoa ote ("Maybe he is not coming") are
frequently heard '11on-interrogatively, although not in the Bizcayan dialect: "Fuera
del B. se oye mucho' separado def verbo cuando no se trata de preguntar." Like-
wise, ome.n, according to Azkue, 'may either precede or follow the verb: "'Casi
indistintamente se dicen etorri omen dira 0 etorri dira omen "dicen que (es fama
que) han venido". (Morf()llogia Vasca 11, p. 470). Compare also Azkue's DiecionCJIYw
Vasco-Espaiiol-Franee'ls (11, p. 109). where berant ibili dira omen, is given as a
possible variant in the Labourc.in dialect of bet1ft.nt ibili onz.en dira "It. is rumored
J
that they have been walking late".

In' both cases talking about the construction with the particle following the
verb, Azkue appears to be referring to contemporary usage: "SeI oye mucho~', "se
dicen". Still,' Azkue was born in 1864 and his cont~mporaries are no longer ours.
Although I have not carried out extensive field work on this question, my feeling
is that the particles mentioned 'can no longer be postposed to the finite verb in
any part of the Basque area. The evidence for this includes the corpus of, olksto-
ries and other ethnographic materials from many different regions of the Basque
'Country collecte~ by Don Jose Miguel de Barandiaran and his students, published
in four volumes as El Mundo en la Mente PoPula.r Vp,sca, Colecci6n Auliiamendi,
San Sebastian 1960-62. The great majority 0. the material was collected between
1920 and 1936, but some olktales (from Ataun) go back as far as the beginning
of the first decade' of this century. As we would expect from the nature of the
material,. the particle omen (including its local variations, such as emen) occurs
with great frequency; however, we invariably find it in the position inmediately:
preceding the finite verb, and often written together with it as one word. The
same is true for the less frequent particles ate and bide.
PARTITIVE ASSIGNMENT
The most, obvious examples of' prefixes in derivational morpho..

logy are arra-, re-; des-, un- and birr-/berr-, re-.
Arra.. is restricted to Souletin and Low-Navarrese. It combines
'with a fairly large number of verbs and with some relational nouns,
e.g.: jin come, arrajin' return; egin make, arregin remake;
phiztu light up, arraphiztu relight; seme son, arraseme grand-
'son; lloba nephew or niece, arralloba great-nephew or great-
'niece; maiatz May, arramaiatz June.
Des- is common to all Basque dialects. It combines only \vith a
-very small number of native adjectives and verbs. So we have e.g.:.
'berdin equal, desberdin unequal; egoki appropriate, desegoki
-inappropnate; egin do, desegin undo.
From jantzi dress, however, we do not have *desjantzi un-
-dress, but erantzi undress, which, curiously enough, has the form
-of an old causative of jantzi.
Both prefixes are evidently of Romance origin. They must have
~entered the language via a large scale borrowing of Romance words
'containing them, 'so that the prefixes and their meaning became
psychologically real to the speakers of Basque. As the examples show,
they can now be combined with purely native stems as well.
The prefix birr-/berr- is of native origin. We find it in: birresan
'repeat (esan, say); birlandatu replant (landatu plant), ber-
piztu resuscitate (piztu animate), berrerosi buy back (erosi
buv).
Our discussion so far is enough to show that Greenberg's assess-
~ment of B.asque as an exclusively suffixing, language cannot stand
unamended. Still, on the other hand, it is very nearly correct. Even
'whenone chooses" to include all of the doubtful cases, the prefixes
still are a negligible minority as compared with the overwhelming
'number (6) of suffixes that Basque draws upon for the formation of
its lexical items. Moreover, case relationships are signalled exclusively
-by suffixes. In this limited sense, Basque indeed is an exclusively
suffixing language.
The following sentence will serve as an illust~htion of the way
'cases are marked in Basque:
Ijitoak emakumeari bi musu eman zizkion masailean. The gypsy
.gave the woman two kisses on the cheek. ,
The suffix -k (called the ergative suffix) marks the noun ijitoa
the gypsy as the subject of a transitive verb, here of enian give.
The suffix -ri marks the noun emakumea the woman as an indi- .
(6) For a list of, the most important suffixes, see P. Lafitte, Gratnmaire
.basque, 83-86.
rect object (dative). The absence of a suffix on bi musu two kisses

marks it as a 'direct object, or, more precisely, as either a direct
object or a subject of an intransitive verb. This unmarked case -is
called the absolutive. Finally, the suffix -n of masailean on the
cheek marks it as a locative. The form zizkion' is a transitive aux-
iliary of the past tense, which includes reference to a third person
singular subject, a thfrd person plural object, and a third person
singular indirect object. .
, The case suffixes are added only to the last element of a phrase;
th~s, to the very beautiful woman translates as emakume 080 ede-
rrari, and not as *emakumeri osori ederrari.
. A' conjoint expression may often be regarded either as one phrase,
and hence supplied with a single suffix, or as a conjunction of two
or more' phrases, and hence with a suffix on each phrase. Thus,
corresponding 'to the English sentence Edurne and Nekane have
done it, both Edurnek eta Nekanek i!gin dute and Edurne ta Ne-
kanek egin dute are possible. (The conjunction and is ta after a
vowel, and eta after a consonant.) _
Nothing resembling the various declensions of some' of the Itido..
European languages, like Latin, Greek, Sanskrit or Slavic, is found
in Basque.. The same case relationship is always signalled by -the
same suffix (7), similar to what happens' in the Uralic or the
Altaic languages.
Because of all this, the case suffixes of Basque are more similar
to the prepositions of English Of, for that matter, Spanish or Fr~nch,
that they are to the case endings of the Indo-European languages
mentioned earlier. For this reason, then, I will often use the teqn
postposition (Le. a. syntactic unit' just like a preposition, except
that it is put after the noun instead of before), when I am referring
to a suffix signalling a case relationship.
, To one of these suffixes, namely -rik, the rest of this paper will
be devoted. .
II. THE SUFFIX -RIK: VIEWS OF OLDER GRAMMARIANS

The postposition -rik, whose r drops after a consonant (8), has
(7) It must be observed, however, that semantically ani~ate'- nouns cannot take
locational case suffixes directly, but only via an intervening element -gan-. Thus
etxetik "from the house" but ijit(){1lymgandik "from'the gypsy".
(8) ,In most of the grammatical literature, the form of, the suffix is consid-
ered to be simply -ik, the r bemg viewed as epenthetic element inserted in no-
I
minal declensions to avoid certain vowel sequences conside"red cacophonic.

I have argued against this view in my article "Is Basque an S.O.V. language",
Pontes Linguae Vasconum 1 (1969), 319-351, on pages 336-338. '
PARTITIVE ASSIGNMENT 135
been given different names by different grammarians. The first author

to mention' the suffix was Oihenart, on page 59 of his work Notitia
Utriusque Vasconiae, published in 1638 in Paris. He called it ne-
gative (9).
Larramendi includes a discussion of it in his famous grammar
El impossible vencido, published in 1729 in Salamanca, and claims
that it is something special, not found in Spanish, French or any
other language. He considers it an article, in fact, two articles:
Ademas de los articulos explicados, tiene el bascuence otros
especiales para todo nombre apelativo que no tiene el romance ni
ottas lenguas. En el- nominativo y acusativo de singular tiene atros
dos articulos, ic, rie, que sirven con frecuencia, especialmente en
ciertos modos de hablar, como cuando preguntamos 0 negamos al..
guna cosa. No se usan ambos promiscuamente, sine unas veces uno
y atras veces otro. Sea, pues, la regIa, que. si el nombre se acaba en
consonante, tiene lugar el ic, v.g.: mutil, guizon se acaban en conso-
nante, y por esomutilic eztag6, no hay ningUn muchacho; guizoni.c
aguer! ezta, no parece hombre alguno. Pero si el nombre se acabare en
'vocal, s610 tiene lugar el Tic, v.g.: ogui, buru se acaban en vocal, y
por eso badezu oguiric?, tienes algun pan? bururic eztu, no tiene
juicio. ( II, p. 8-9).
Azkue, the great Basque grammarian 'of the recent past -he died
in 1951- follows Larramendi in considering -rik an article. In his
Diccionario Vasco..Espanol..Frances (1905) he calls it' articulo no
afirmativo e indeterminado (I, p. 400) and adds: Se usa en nega-
ciones, dudas, condiciones, interrogaciones, etc.; diferenciandose de
los articulos -a y -0 en que estos se usan en afirmaciones concretas.
He also observes that' rik can be used only in the absolutive (Le.
nominative) case: Diferencianse tambien loo articulos afirmativos
y el no afirmativo, en que este se usa s610 con pacientes 0 acusativos'.
In his later work Mor/alogia Vasca (1923), he uses the term articulo
abstracto for .. rik, a~d opposes it to the articulo generico -a and
the articulo concreto (he also says concretivo) ..0 ( 427).
Nearly a century earlier, Lecluse (Grammaire basque, 1826) also
made a threefold distinction, not between three kinds of articles, but
between three kinds of nominatives: nominatif; nominatif actif
(Le. ergative ..k) and nominatif negatif, his name for the suffix
-rik. He'remarks (p. 83):' Ce nominatif negatif peut etre considere
comme un partitif; en effet, si 1'00 veut exprimer en basque ces
, . (9) "r am indebted for this reference to L6c1use, Grammaire basque (Toulouse-
Bayonne, 1826), p. 82.
phrases: le n'ai pas d'argent, a..t.. il de l'argent? on ne peut ,dire

autrement que: E'z dut diruric, badu diruric?
The same two examples Ez dut diruric, badu diruric? had already
occurred in Harriet's Gramatica escuaraz eta francesez (1741), from
which Lecluse probably took them. Harriet, however, contents himself
with stating: aitaric, aitarenic signifient le [sic] non possession de
la ,personne ou de la chose' (p. 450) and then cites a few examples..
The parall~l Lecluse draws between -rik and the partitive in
French meets with stem disapproval on the part of Van Eys. The:
Dutch bascologist expresses his vi~ws as follows:
Ik, par consequent, a ceux qui expliquent le basque par la.
langue fran9aise, a p~ru corresp'ondre a "cJe". Mais ikcorrespond'
plutot a un pluriel indefini. Dans la plupart des cas, l'ind6fini est
un pluriel ou pent s'expliquer par un pluriel et ik n'est pas un.
suffixe correspondant a la preposition "de"; ik est, croyons..nous,
le signe de pluralite k precede de i. (Grammaire comparee des-
dialectes basques, Paris, 1879, p. 39).
1t is not necessary for us to criticize this idea in any detail..
Van Eys speaks of i as an intermediary vowel characteristic of the.
indefinite plural (p. 35),' but his whole theory of the intermediary"
vowels a, e, i and 0 in Basque (Chap. VI, 3, 4, 5, 6) has no factual
basis. His i cannot be identified with the dative suffix -ri, which is
always word~fina1. Moreover, noun phrases ending in the suffix -rik-
are always syntactically singular, never plural. On the preceding
page (p. 38), Van Eys himself quotes an example (from Mendiburu)
that shows this: .. .ez dute bear lukeen euskarasko libururik They
don,'t have the Basque books he would need. If euskarasko libururik
'Basque books' was plural, the verb forms dituzte and litukeen would
have been used instead of dute and lukeen. But with dituzte and,
litukeen the sentence would have been ungrammatical, since noun&
with the suffix ..rik are not construed as plural in Basque.
We now leave Van Eys and pass on to another grammarian",
Jean Ithurry, a parish priest of Sara, who devoted the last years
of his life to composing a Basque grammar. He died in 1895, but.
his work did not come out as a book until 1920. The first part of
hIS Grammaire basque deals with case suffixes. Among them we find
-rik, explicitly referred to as le suffixe du partitif (Chap. I~.
Art. 11, p. 2). The third part of the book deals with syntax (10) . .
(10) I can't refrain from mentioning as a curiosity that the first chapter-
of this part is headed: ., Chapitre I, Syntaxe des noms des saints".
The partitive is treated in 470 (p. 431), where we find-enumerated

four circumstances under which it is used:
Au partitif se place:
1. Le nom, qui vient apres l'interrogation, il y a? et it n'y
a point? (11).
2. L'etat, la position, la posture dans lesquels on _est, 8, reste,
demeure, laisse (12).
3. Apres assez de ... (13).
4. Apres le superlatif.
Aside from a dozen examples taken from the literature, which
I have not reproduced, this is all the author has to say about the
use of the partitive.
We get better results with the next two authors, Gavel and
Lafitte. With them, of course, we are reaching- well into the
twentieth century.
Henri Gavel, in his Grammaire basque (Bayonne 1929), a trl:11y
outstanding work, has a five-page section (Chap. 11, 54) entitled
Le discedent et le partitif where he treats the suffixes ..tik from,
through, and -rik. These two, according to him, were originally
one and the same. That is certainly plausible, but a discussion of
this would lead us beyond the scope of this paper, which is not
concerned with etymology. Certain is that nowadays all Basque
dialects do distinguish ablative and partitive.
Gavel had, of course, read Van Eys's Grammaire Comparee; even
so, he is not afraid to use the French partitive as a tenn of comparison
in describing the use of the Basque suffix. We quote:
(11) After this, the author gives four examples, none of them interrogative.
I will transcribe the first one here, because it contains no less than five partitive
forms: Prudentki go,berna:tzen ba.zcwe ez <la. izanen ez aitarik ez mnarik, ez
1
senhalrrik ez etn(l.Zte.rik maiz k'omuniatzetik debekatu nah1:ko $Iaituenik 'If you behave
J
wisely, there won't be any father, any mother, any husband or any wife who
will want to stop you from receivi'ng Holy Communion often'. Especially interesting
is the partitivization of the pseudo-extraposed relative clause maiz komunwtzetik
debe.katu nahiko zaituen 'who will want to stop you from receiving Holy Communion
often'. For the notion of pseudo-extraposition see pages 129-131 of my paper
"Relative Clauses in Basque: A. Guided Tour", in Peranteau, Levi, Phares (eds.),
The Chic-ago Which Hunt (C.L.S., Chicago, 1972), p. 115-135.
. (12) None of the 'Basque grammarians, not even Gavel or Lafitte, distinguishes
partitive -rik from stative -rik. There are, however, both semantic and syntactic
reasons for doing so, as can be seen from the ene: of section III of this paper.
(13) The phrasing here, of course, is nonsensical. Such a lapsus reminds us
of the fact that Ithurry's treatment of syntax in Part Ill, or at least a great
deal of it, is best considered as a collection of notes of the author to himself,
to be worked out later, rather than as a manuscript ready for publication. Ithurry,
unfortunately, died before he coulc' bring his task to a proper end.
J8
Le partitif a plusieurs emplois, assez differents les uns des

autres. Le plus important est de rendre, clans les phrases negatives,
ou interrogatives, l'idee exprimee par le partitif fran~ais forme a l'aide
de la preposition de (combinee ou non, suivant les cas, avec l'article
defini), lorsque ce partitif fran9ais est, au point de vue basque, sujet
reel du verbe. Ex:
Ogirik nahi duzuia? 'Voulez.. vous du pain?'
Etzen urik '11 n'y avait pas d'eau'. (Chap. 11, p. 32).
Now, we -may criticize Gavel's formulation, and 'rightly so, for
it is somewhat infelicitously phrased; yet, he s,ucceeds in making
clear three things: (i) . .rik is a semantic equivalent of the French
partitive, but (H), unlike the latter, it is restricted to negative and
interrogative contexts and (Hi) to the absolutive (Le. nominative)
case. Of all previous studies, only Azkue's (Diccionario Vasco..Espa-
fiol..Frances I, p. 400) achieved this much insight.
On page 34, Gavel mentions what he calls another use of the
partitive in Basque, n'amely, with past participles and some adjectives
in the function of an ablative absolute. I consider this a separate
suffix, not synchronically related to the partitive; cf. the end of my
section Ill.
There are still a few other observations on the partitive in
Gavel's book; I will mention some of them further on in this paper.
Finally~ in Pierre Lafitte's Grammaire 'basque (Bayonne, 1944),
we find the partitive as one of th"e twelve cases the author
distinguishes in Basque (Chap. VII, 122). Like his predecessors,
he collapses partitive ..rik and stative ..rik, which together make up
his partitive case. He presents a bare list of its various uses in
Chap. XXXIV, 856, and gives a slightly more extensive treatment
in Chap. VIII, 160, on how to translate the French partitive article
into Basque, and in 161: Emplois particuliers du cas partitif
basque ('Some special uses of the Basque partitive case').
I am indebted for some valuable information to these and other
sections of Lafitte's book, but I will make no attempt to summarize
them here, as the book is readily available and should be part of the
library of anyone interested in Basque.
We have seen 'that many Basque grammarians use the term
partitive when talking about the suffix -rik. I will do the same,
for the similarity with the French partitive is too striking to be
ignored; even though the conditions under which the Basque partitive
occurs are much more restricted than those that govern the use of
the French construction of the same name.
A partitive is a form typically used for presenting a quantity the
PARTITIVE ASSIGN:MENT 139
exact size of which is not know or is irrelevant. To illustrate with

a French example, we have: /.[ y a des gitans en France.. 'There are
gypsies in France'. With a well-defined quantity the partitive prepo-
sition de cannot be used:
11 y a vingt mille gitans en France. 'There are twenty thousand gyp-

sies in France' and not: *11 y a des vingt mUle gitans en France.
In Basque, the use of the partitive suffix in affirmative contexts

is subject to severe limitations:
( l)a * Ijitorik ba da Frantzian.

If uttered with normal, purely declarative, intonation, (l)a is
ungrammatical in all dialects (14). The partitive -rik cannot appear
here, the plural article (15) -ak must be used:
(l)b Ijitoak ba dira Frantzian. 'There are gypsies in France'.
The verb form here is plural too: dira 'are' instead of da 'is', since
the subject of the existencial verb izan 'be' is the plural form ijitoak
'gypsies'.
(14) Contrary to this affirmation, I know of one. Guipuzcoan author, Salvador

Garmendia born in Zaldibia, who does use the partitive in purely declarative
sentences such as (l)a. In a play, published in the journal Eg0ii7.~ he writ~:
Beti izan degu' bortmdate.rik r:We have always had will' Egan, 29 (1969), p. 111). Cf.
French: Nous avons wu,iours eu de la v{)Lonte. His sentence is rejected by all my
informants. According to L. Michelena, in Zaldibia like everywhere ,else, people
would say: Beti izan degu borondatea, without the partitive.
Garmencia has tra'nslated various literary works from French into Basque,
among those Camus, Les Justes and St. Exupery, Le Petit Prince. Thus it is
possible that Garmendia has allowed the syntax of his native language to be
influenced by that of French. He -seenls to have developed a particular predilection
for the partitive construction, for in his translation of Le Petit Prince, he used it,
creating an ungrammatical sentence, where the original French version does not
have" a partitive: H,emengo ihiztarie.k ba dute ritorik: ... 'The local hunters have
rites: ... ' (p. 70). The French has: 11 y a un r~te, Pew exemple., chez mes chasseurs.
Thus, it seems that the statement in the text can be left without further
qualifications.
(15) The singular article -a and its plural -ak are usually definite. However,
in the morphologically unmarkeo case (i.e. the absolutive, or nominative), they
can also be indefinite, as e.g., in existe-ntial cla~ses, su'ch as- (l)b. I cannot go
into the details here, since the conditions under which this happens are highly
complex and there are at least three geographically coexisting systems. I am
hoping to throw some light on this problem in a later publication.
In the Northern dialects of Basque, the partitive can be used. with

declarative intonation in affirmative contexts when the head of the
noun phrase carries a modifier of certain types, as we will see in
section V.
Ill. BASIC USES OF THE PARTITIVE
Most instances of partitive -rik arise as the result of a transfor-

mation, \vhich I will call Partitive Assignment, to be discussed in
section lV. The theoretical status of -rik in the grammar, however,
is not merely that of a transformationally introduced element. Some
instances of -rik are basic; that is, they are to be accounted for by
the base rules of the grammar (16).
The basic uses of -rik can be distinguished from the derived uses
by means of two criteria, both of which must be satisfied:
(i) In its basic use, -rik functions as a postposition: it indicates a

grammatical relation between two constituents.
(ii) The basic use of -rik can occur in all sentence types, including
positive assertions.
In accordance with these criteria, two -possibly related- uses

of -rik are clearly basic; namely, the use of -rik in superlative con-
structions, and the use of -rik in quantifier constructions.
a) Superlative constructions.
(2)a Arantxa emakumerik ederrena da. 'Arantxa is the most beauti-
ful of women'.
-en being the superlative suffix, ederren is the superlative form of
eder 'beautiful', -a is an article; the noun emakume 'woman' carries
the suffix -rik.
(2)b Ijitorik geienak ederrak dira. 'Most gypsies are beautiful'.
The form geien 'most' contains the superlative suffix -en, and
also acts like a superlative form in allowing the partitive -rik on the
preceding noun ijito 'gypsy'. -ak is the plural of the article -a, added
(16) I co' not mean to take a stand here with regard to the controversial
questio'n as to just how categories such as prepositions, postpositions, case endings
and the like are to be generated, either in universal grammar or in the grammar
of Basque. All I want to say is that sorn.e instances of -rik are generated in the
same way, and exis,t at the same level of structure, as the other postpositions
of Basque.
PARTITIVE ASSIGNl\I.IENT 141
here to the adjective eder 'heautiful' by a role of concord operative

in all Basque dialects except Souletin and Roncalese.
(2)c Zugaitz onen fruturik leena ijitoari' eman bear zaio. 'The first
fruit of this tree must be given to the gypsy'. '
The adjective leen 'first' functions as a superlative. It induces

the partitive on the noun it modifies, in our example, frutu 'fruit'.
The same is true for the adjective azken 'last', but not fQr the ordi-
nals bigarren 'second', irugarren 'third', and so on. Thus, we can
have: zugaitz onen jruturik azkena 'the last fruit of this, tree', but
never *zugaitz onen fruturik bigarrena 'the second fruit of this tree'.
In contemporary usage, at least in Guiptizcoa and Bizcaya, the
partitive in superlative constructions is optional. Instead of it, the
bare noun may be used, with no difference in meaning: emakume
ederrena 'the most be-autiful woman'; ijito geienak 'most gypsies';
zugaitz onen frutu leena 'the first fruit of this tree'.
b) Quantifier constructions.
(3)a Ijitorik askorekin itzegin degu. 'We have talked with many
gypsies'.
{3)b Axeterrik aski duzu. 'There- are plenty of doctors' (Etxepare,
Linguae Vasconum Pri-mitiae, p. 100).
(3)c Naiko gerlarik degu. 'We have got enough war'.
(3)d I bezelako euskaldunik ba dek makifia bat. 'There are a lot
of Basques like you' (D. Aguirre, Garoa, p. 95).
These are all positive assertions where the presence of a quanti-

fier in.duces the partitive fonn of the quantified noun phrase. Thus.,
in (3)d, euskaldun 'Basque' has the partitive postposition because
it is in construction with the quantifier makifia bat 'a lot'.
Most parts of Northern Guipuzcoa (e.g. Zarauz, San Sebastian,
Oyarzun) have abandoned this use of the partitive in affirmative sen-
tences. They say ijito asko instead of ijitorik asko (17). To (.3)d, they
prefer (3)e or (3)f.
{3)e I bezelako makifia bat euskaldun ha dek.
(3)f I bezelako euskalduna ba dek makiiia bat.
(17) Already Leizarraga's .New Testanlent translation (1571) has quantifiet"
cO'nstructions with and without the partitive. So we find: ... anhitz gauza banuen-ere
zuei skribatzekorik (2. In. 1.12) 'though I had many things - to write to you'.
B~t: oraino anhitz gauza dut zuei erraiteko (In. 16.12) 'I have still many things
to say to you'.
(The meaning of (3)e or (3)f is the same as that of (3)d).

This practice is to be viewed as an innovation. That the parti-
tive in quantifier constnlctions was once common all over the area,
is shown by frozen expressions such as eskarrik asko 'many thanks',
alongside of which there is no *eskar asko.
In this subsection, too, belongs the use of the partitive in excla-
mations. Consider the sentences:
(3)g Ba da ijitorik Espafiian! ,'There are in Spain an awful lot of
gypsies!'
(3)h Ijitorik ba da Espafiian! 'An awful lot of gypsies there are in
Spain!'
To account for the partitive in these examples~ I will assume the
underlying presence of a quantifier, meaning something like 'a lot'.
This quantifier is then deleted by a presumably late nlle of Quanti-
fier Deletion operating specifically in exclamatory sentences.
The same process can be found in other languages. 1n Dutch
e.g. sentence (3)h will be rendered as: Een zigeuners dat er in Spanje
zijn!
In this sentence, the singular fonn of the indefinite article,
unstressed een, seems to clash with the plural form zigeuners 'gyp-
sies'. Here too, an understood quantifier, probably een (hele) boel
'a (whole) lot' nicely accounts for this morphological peculiarity as
well as for the meaning of the sentence.
There is a difficulty with this solution in the case of Basque.
Exclamations like (3)g,h are used also by speakers who do not allow
the partitive with quantifiers in positive contexts. This difficulty
is not insurmountable. We have seen that, in certain regions, the use
of the partitive with quantifiers has the status of an archaism. But,
for archaisms to survive only in exclamatory contexts is not un-
common. Basque itself offers another example of that: In the Gui-
puzcoan and Bizcayan dialects; the old non-emphatic possessive pro-
noun ene 'my' has been totally replaced by the form nere, which
used to be emphatic,' or by nire, an analogical formation on the
pronoun ni 'I'. With one exception, namely exclamations: ene lain-
koa! 'my God!', ene ama! 'my mother!' ai ene! 'oh my!'. The Nor-
thern dialects still make use of ene in all contexts. Clearly, syntactic
theory must have devic.es for dealing with this type of situation.
By this account, the use of -rik in exclamations is a basic one,
in spite of the apparent violation of our criterion (ii). Of course,
the restriction to exclamatory contexts here has nothing to do with
the occurrence of the partitive as such, but only with the fact that
the rule of Quantifier Deletion is restricted to those contexts.
From example (3)a, ijitorik askorekin 'with many gypsies' we see
that the use of -rile with quantifiers does not require the whole noun
phrase to be in the absolutive (i.e. nominative) case. Postp'ositions in
Basque are always added to the end of the whole noun phrase;
therefore, the quantifier asko 'many' and not the noun ijito' 'gypsy'
receives the postposition -rekin 'with'. 1t is not possible to pile an-
other suffix on top of the partitive itself. Therefore, in example (3)c,
where the quantifier naiko 'enough' precedes the noun gerla 'war',
it is essential for the whole noun phrase naiko gerlarik 'enough war'
10 be in the absolutive case.
What I have called stative. -rik (see section 11, footnote 12) is an
entirely different morpheme. We find it added to past, participle
forms, mainly in the Northern dialects: ikusirik 'having seen', from
ikusi 'seen'. For more examples and some remarks on the use of
these fonns, see P. Lafitte, Grammaire basque, 498. In all dialects,
stative -rik can be added to certain adjectives and a few nouns. The
resulting form always denotes a state, hence the name stative -rik.
Examples are: (from adjectives) alperrik 'in vain', bakarrik 'alone',
bilutsik _'naked', bizirik -.'alive', isilik 'silent', osorik 'completeS, za-
balik 'wide open'; (from nouns) baraurik 'empty-stomached', bildu-
rrik 'afraid', pozik 'happy'. To many of these fornls, the relational
suffix -ko may be added, the result being a prenominal modifier of
a noun phrase: bilutsik ikusirikako ijitoa 'the -gypsy seen naked', al-
perrikako esamesak 'vain gossip'. The a appearing in front of the
suffix -ko is an indication that the underlying fonn of -rik is -rika (18),
(18) In the modern dialects, Vowel Truncation is a strictly' obligatory rule.
But, in several 16th and 17th century texts, we find ma'ny instances of undeleted
-a~ at least with the suffixes -rik and -tik. So in Etxepare's poem "Emazten
Fabore" (Linguae. Vasconum Primitiae, 1545): ixilika 'silent", zerutika 'from heaven'.
Also in a poem awarded the first prize in a contest in Pamplona in 1610, we
fine:: guifonica 'any man', alegrer1.ca 'joyous', jarri1"1Ica 'seated', jan-cirica 'clothed',
pobrefarica 'jrrtenica 'having come out of poverty', artwr-ica 'having taken', alongside
of forms without final -0; : fantasiaric 'any phantasy', echiric 'closed',
c-unlplituric 'fulfilled'. L. Michelena, who quotes this poem in his book Teztos
Arcaices VO...s1COS, 3.1.21, remarks: '"Llama la atenci6n la frecuencia con que
aparece -en parte, acaso, n1retri causa- la desi'nencia - (r )ica de "partitivo". En el
v. 67 tiene claro valor de ablativo: pobrefari.ca '(salidos) de la pobreza'." In the
same work, 3.2.11, we find the text of a Credo in High N'ava\rrese, published
in ,Rome in 1614. It has the form an&ica 'frOln there', but concevituric, vaytatic,
vitartet-ic, jarrreric \vith deleted -a (op.- cit. p. 163). In Beriayn's Tratado de co-rno
.se ha d~ 01.1' missa. (a bilingual book, whose Basque is Southern High N avarrese..
probably from Uterga, published in Pamplona in 1621), there is an instance- of
jakinika 'knowing" for ja!~inik (p. 71).
showing that the phon'ological rule of Vowel Truncation which I

proposed on page 339 of my article Is Basque an S.D.V. Language?
(Fontes Linguae Vasconum, I (1969), p. 319-351) is not restricted
to verb fonns.
We thus -notice an important difference between stative -rik and
partitive -rik: the former can be followed by the suffix -ko, while
the latter cannot be followed by any suffix.
There is an exception to this statement, but it is not a very inter-
esting one. In certain dialects, and especially in Guipuzcoan, the
syllable -an (or, rather, the segment -n, since the underlying form of
-rik, -tik is -rika, -tika), possibly identical with the inessive ending
-n 'in', can be added freely to any suffix ending in -ik, causing no
change in meaning whatsoever (cf. Azkue, Mar/alogia Vasca, 441).
Thus, we meet forms like: ijitorikan asko 'many gypsies', pozikan
'happy', ikusirikan 'having seen', orregatikan' 'therefore', oraindikan
'stilI', dirurikan (19) gabe 'without money', ardoa duelarikan 'while
he has wine' (the suffix -Zarik 'while' consists of the complementizer
-la 'that', 'while', together with stative -rik). -
Some speakers will even iterate the process, producing forms
like pozikanen from pozikan, from pozik. The advantage of this free
extra syllable is eagerly exploited by the bertsolaris (Basque bards)
in their improvised poetic productions, where a correct meter is im-
perative. It also occurs in nonnal conversational style, albeit in
certain regions it is a lot more frequent than in others. In particular,
the coastal area seems to be quite fond of it.
Its use is "already attested in Etxepare's Linguae Vasconum Pri-
mitiae ( 1545): biderikan lizatenez 'if there was a way' (Amore
gogorraren despita, line 4). Also e.g. in Gazteluzar's Eguia Catholicac
(1686): maiteagorikan, 'more loved' (p. 300).
(19) This example may seem like a real counter-example to the claim we
just made. It appears that partitive -rik is followe<! by another postposition: gabe.
There are, however, many reasons for cons,idering gabe an adjective (similar 'to
bete 'full')' and not a postposition. I will mention just three: GOJbe can receive the
determiner -a by the rule of concord mentioned under example (2)b, which applies
to nouns and adjectives, but not to postposition:
(i) Ijito ori dirurik gabea da. 'That gypsy is without money'. Postpositions
rlo not take stative -rik, but gabe does: dit"urik gaberik 'being without money'.
Some dialects anow gabe to occur without a preceding ,head noun:
(ii) Pipa nerekin daramat, ezin naiteke gabe ta. '1 am carrying my pipe with
me, as I cannot stand to be without' (from: P. Berrondo, Oyarzun).'
In no Basque dialect, however, can a postpositioll ever survive without a
supporting head present in surface Structure. Vve conclude that gabe is not a
postposition.
One important observation before closing this section. The par-

titive postposition -rik is restricted to indefinite noun phrases. It is
therefore --incompatible with demonstratives and other definite de-
terminers. Thus, while, as we saw, the English phrase the most
beautiful of women readily translates as emakumerik ederrena, the
phrase the most beautifu'l of these women can be translated in several
ways, but not with the partitive (20). We get: emakume auetan ede-
rrena (locative plural), emakume auetatik ederrena (ablative plural),
emakume auetako ederrena (<<relational genitive plural), emakume
auen artean (ar: artetik) arteko) ederrena (literally: 'the most beauti-
ful (from) among these women').
Similarly, the most beautiful of the women will be translated as:
emakumeetan ederrena, emakumeetatik ederrena, emakumeetako ede-
rrena, Of, em(lkumeen artean (arteko, artetik) ederrena. Here too,
the p-artitive cannot be used.
A last remark: in all cases, the postposition -rik is added directly
to its theme. It does not take an intervening marker of indefiniteness,
like the locative pastpasitions do. For the. inessive -n, e.g., we have
the definite farms zuloan 'in the hole' and (bi)zuloetan 'in the (two)
holes', but also the indefinite (bi) zulotan 'in (two) holes'. For the
partitive, only one form exists: zulorik.
We are ready to turn now to the main part of this paper, sec-
tion 'IV, where we will deal with the transformational process of
Parti.tive Assignm~nt.
IV. pERIVED USES OF -THE PARTITIVE
Consider sentenc"e (4):
(4) Ijito ori ikusi degu. "We have seen that gypsy' (gypsy that seen
have we).
Negating (4), 'we get se~tence (5):
(5) Ez degu ijito ori ikusi. 'We haven't seen that gypsy'-.
The word order in (5) is different from that in (4), because the
(20) The existence of the forms e.makwme hauetarik and emakumeetarik in the
Northern dialects should not lead us astray. These are ablative plural fonns. In these
dialects, -etarik replaces -etatik (and even the animate -engandik) as the plural
form of the ablative postpositiO'n -tik. The partitive 'Postposition -rik has no plural.
19
146 R. P. G. DE, RIJK.
negative ez attracts the auxiliary degu, thus forming one phonologi..

cal word: eztegu.
In the same way, we would expect the negati~n of (6)a'to be (7)a,
and that of (6)b to be (7)b:
(6)a Ijitoa ikusi degu. 'We have seen a gypsy'.

(6)b Andaluziko ijito bat ikusi degu. "We have seen a gypsy from
Andalusia'.
(7)a Ez degu ijitoa ikusi. 'We haven't seen the gypsy'.
(7)b Ez degu Andaluziko ijito bat ikusi. 'We haven't seen one gypsy
from Andalusia'.
But, as we see from the glosses, this is not the case. (7)a is not
the negation of (6)a, and (7)b is not quite the negation of (6)b. The
negations of (6)a and (6)b are (8)a and (8)b, respectively:
(8)a Ez degu ijitorik ikusi. 'We haven't seen a gypsy'.

(8)b Ez degu Andaluziko ijitorik ikusi. 'We haven't seen a gypsy
from Andalusia'.
This is a strange, Of, at least, unexpected, situation. Can we

account for it? Yes, we can, if we avail ourselves of the resources
of Transformational Grammar.
One way, indeed, of clarifying what is going on, is to postulate
the existence of a grammatical transformation. I will call this trans-
formation Partitive Assignment. It applies to an indefinite noun
phrase, and is triggered by a negative commanding (21) this noun
(21) The notion of "command" is due to R. w. Langacker. In his paper

" On Pronominalization and the Chain of Command" (published in Reibel and
Schane: Modern Stu'dies in English, p. 160-186) he defines the concept as follows:
"We will say that a node A "commands" another, node B if (l)i neither A nor B
dominates the other; and (2) the S-node that most immediately dominates A also
dominates B" (p. 167).
The condition. that the negative commands the noun phrase to which the
partitive is assigned will explain e.g. why in the following sentence oill'oa. 'a chicken'
cannot be changed to oillorik in spite of th~ preceding negative' ez:
Ikusi ez natien ijitoak oilloa arrapatu dUo 'The gypsy who hasn't seen me has
caught a chicken'.
In this example,. the negative ez does not command the noun phrase oilloQ"
since the clause (i.e. S-'node) that most immediately dominates ez is the relative
clause (ijifoak) ikusi ez nau "(the gypsy) has not seen me", which does not
contai'n (i.e. does not dominate) the noun phrase, oilloa.
phrase. What it .does .is Chomsky-adjoin the postposition -rik to the

right of the noun phrase. (See Fig. 1.)
I
NP
I ~~
NP NP . p
---~
I
[-def]
I
[-def]
I
rik
Fig. J. - Partitive Assignment.
Formulated in this fashion, Partitive Assignment is a standard
type rule, allowed by any theory of transformational grammar: Chom-
sky~adjunction of a designated element. The restriction to indefinite
noun phrases is also well known in transformational practice, cf. e.g.
the rule of there-insertion in English. The requirement that the trigger-
ing negative must command the NP node affected by the rule needs'
no' comment. It merely expresses' the fact that Partitive Assignment
is upward bounded in the sense of Ross (Constraints on Variables in
Syntax, section 5.lff), as is the case of the great majority of transfor-
mational rules.
Partitive Assignment is blocked when the noun phrase already
has a postposition attached to it. Whether this restriction has to
be incorporated into the statement of the .rule in a more or less ad
hoc manner, or can be deduced from some general principle of
grammar, is not clear to me at present. If a universal constraint is
involved, however, it should be weak enough to allow for the double
case-marking which constituents inside relative clauses are subjected
to in some Australian languages. (Data from Prof. K. L. Hale, M.I.T.)
Our formulation of Partitive Assignment makes it necessary to
postulate a rule of Determiner Deletion. This rule deletes indefinite
determiners (indefinite -a and its plural-ak, bat 'a', and batzuek 'some')
whenever they are followed by the postposition -rik. This way, we
get the correct form ijitorik in examples (8)a and (8)b. Otherwise,
of course, we would end up with the non-existent forms *ijitoarik
and *ijito batik.
Determiner Deletion, however, is needed anyway, regardless of

how we formulate Partitive Assignment. It serves ,to express the
fact that -rik is unique among the postpositions of Basque in that
it is always added :directly to the last noun or adjective of the affected
noun phrase, without any intervening determiner. This is true for
both basic -rik and derived -rik. We may contrast this with the
behavior of 'the dative postposition -ri. In certain syntactic environ-
ments~' -ri can be added directly to the noun: iru ijitori 'to three
gypsies', but usually a determiner intervenes: ijito bati 'to a gypsy',
iNto batzuei 'to some. gypsies', and with a definite determiner: ijitoari
'to the gyjsy', ijitoai 'to the gypsies'. With dative -ri, there are thus
five possible forms; with partitive -rik only one: ijitorik.
It is, of course, not surprising that there is a rule of Determiner
Deletion associated with the postposition -rik. From section JII, we
know that -rik is incompatible with definite determiners. The fea-
ture indefinite is therefore redundant and needs no manifestation in
surface structure. Whether it is actually deleted, or just prevented
from being spelled out, is of little importance here.
I am well aware that this treatment of th~ partitive in Basque is
not the only one possible. It is, however, a very natural one, and it
provides us with a framework that enables us to describe the dis-
tribution .of "rik in a fairly coherent ,way. In a sense, our transforma-
tional approach reconciles the conflicting views of the native gram-
marians discussed in section 11. Since the combined effect of Partitive
Assignment and Detenniner Deletion amounts to the substitution of
a postposition for an article, we can say that those who, like Azkue,
consider ..rik to be an article, are looking at the deep structure,
whereas those who, like Lafitte, consider -rik to be a case ending
are looking at the surface structure.
Let us now return for a moment to our example sentences (6)-(8).
The theory we have given explains why the negations of (6)a and
(6)b have the form of (8)a and (8)b, and not of (7)a and (7)b. But
why are (7)a and (7)b still grammatical sentences? The answer is
that -a in (6)a is ambiguous between a. definite and an indefinite
article, and bat in (6)b between a numeral ('one') and an indefinite
article (cf. footnote 15). The indefinite reading of (7)a and (7)b is
removed by the obligatory application of Partitive Assignment, and
only the other reading remains.
1n these examples, Partitive Assignment is triggered by the ne-
gative ez 'not'. This, however, is not the only negative that can trigger
Partitive Assignme.nt. Two others are ezin 'impossible' and n-ekez
'hardly':
(9)a Ijito onek ezin du jantzi berririk erosi. 'This gypsy cannot buy
new clothes'.
(9)b Nekez arkituko dezu emen ijitorik. 'You will hardly find gyPoM
sies here'.
We have seen Partitive Assignment applying in negative contexts.

Actually, there IS a much wider class of contexts in which Partitive
Assignment can apply. There, however, its, application tends to be
optional, and occasionally subject to idiolectal variation.
These contexts can be listed as follows: (i) .. (vi):
(i) Presence of a word meaning 'only': bakarrik, soillik, txoilki.

Example:
(10)a Orrelako astakeririk Nixonek bakarrik egingo zukean. 'Only
Nixon would have made such a blunder'.
It is likely that an underlying negative accounts for the occur..

rence of the partitive in this example; especially if the underlying
structure of (10)a is similar to that of (10)b:
(10)b Inork ez zukean egingo orrelako astakeririk, Nixonek bai.

'Nobody would have made such a blunder, (but) Nixon has'.
(ii) Presence of the word beste 'other' modifying the noun phrase
partitivized:
(11)a Ba det beste -adiskiderik. 'I have other friends'. '
(11)b Gaur, berriz, beste konturik dago. 'Today, however, it's a
different story' (A. Zabala, Bertsolarien Txapelketa 1960, p. 10).
(iii) Yes-no questions:
(12)a Ijitorik ikusi al dezu? 'Have you seen gypsies?'
(12)b Ogirik ba al dezu? 'Do you have bread?'
-(12)c Ardorik nai a1 dezu? 'Do you want wine?'
If the widely held view among transformational grammarians is

'correct that the derivation of yes-no questions involves a disjunction
of a positive clause with its denial, an underlying negative may be
responsible for the occurence of the partitive here.
I t is important to note that the partitive in this type of questions
may o~ may not be associated with negative presuppositions or ex..
.pectations. In other words, the examples given under (12) do not
betray a negative expectation on the part of the speaker. They are
negative only in so far as the possibility of a negative ,answer is

left open.
Indirect yes-no questions also, allow the partitive:
(12)d Ijitorik ikusi duen (or: duenetz) galdetu diot. '1 have asked
him if he has seen gypsies'.
(12)e Aitak dirurik emango ote' didan ari naiz. '1 am wondering
if father will give me Inoney'.
(iv) Some Wh-questions, namely those that are equivalent to a
negative assertion (queclaratives, see footnote 4), Of, at least, indi-
cate strong disbelief or constemation on the part of the speaker.
Neutral Wh-questions do not allow the partitive:
(13)a Noiz esan du itzik? 'When has he said a word?'
(13)b Nun, arkituko dezu emen artzik? 'Where will you find hears
here?'
(13)c Zergatik esan bear zizuten itz gaiztorik? 'What did they have
to say nasty words to you for?'
(13)d Zeinek eman dio dirua? (* dirurik) 'Who has given him
money?' .
'Note the contrast between (13)e and (13)f:
(13)e Eliza ori zarberritzeko, zeifiek' emango luke dirurik? 'Who

would give money to renovate that church?'
(13)f Eliza ori zarberritzeko, zeiiiek eman du dirua? (*dirurik).
'Who has given money to renovate that church?' (spoken after the
renovation of the church). "
(v) Conditionals:
(14)a Ijitorik ikusten badezu, esaiezu eztaietara etortzeko. 'If you
'See gypsies, tell them to come to the wedding'.
(14)b Babarrunik jaten badezu, zinera eramango zaitudala itzema-
ten dizut. 'If you eat b-eans, I promise that I will take you to the
movies'. '
(vi) A special class of predicates allow the partitive to occur inside
their sentential complements, but not inside the main clause of the
predicate., Using a term introduced by E. Klima for a similar situa..
tion in English, we may call them affective predicates. (see:
E. S. Klima, Negation in English, XV, 41, in J. A. Fodor, J. J. Katz:
The Structure of Language, p. 246..323). Some members of this class
are: all adjectives with the suffix -egi 'too'; sinisgaitz 'unbelievable',
arrigarri 'surprisi~g', zail 'difficult', zoro 'foolish', arritu, 'to be sur-
PARTITIVE ASSIGNl\J.IENT 151
prised', bildur izan 'to be afraid', debekatu 'to forbid', ukatu 'to
refuse'. Examples:
(15)a Ijito au pobreegia da jantzi berririk erosteko. 'This gypsy is
too poor to buy new clothes'..
(15)b Sinisgaitza da artzik emen ikustea. 'Seeing bears here is un..
-believable'.
(15)c Arrigarria da Don Primitivok euskerazko ~ibururik irakur..
tzea. 'It is surprising that Don Primitivo reads Basque books'.
(15)d Egun auetan zailla'da bizimodurik eskuratzea. 'It is difficult
these days to obtain a living'.
( 15)e Ijitorik ezkongai gelditzea zoroa iruditzen zait. 'It seems
foolish to me for a gypsy to remain unmarried'.
(15)f Arritzen naiz ijitorik emen arkitzea. '1 am surprised to find
gypsies here'.
( 15)g Martini errurik ezarriko zioten bildur zan. 'He was afraid
that they would put 'blame on Martin' (D. Aguirre, Garoa, p. 184).
(15)h Legeak debekatzen du artzik iltzea. 'The law forbids killing
bears'.
(15)i Ijito one-k ukatu egin du ardorik edatea. 'This gypsy has re-
fused to drink wine'.
This terminates our listing of the contexts in which Partitive

Assignment can 'Operate. We should still point out in this connection
that Partitive Assignment can reach down into complement clauses.
What this means is that, whenever the partitive can occur in a
clause, it can also occur in a sentential complement below that
clause. Here are some examples that illustrate this:
(16)a Ijitorik -ikusi dezula uste a1 du Mirenek? 'Does Miren think

,that you have seen gypsies?'
(16)b Egia al da ijitorik ikusi dezula? 'Is it true that you have
seen gypsies?'
(16)c Ijitorik ikusi dezul a egia bada, zergatik ez dituzu ekani?
'If it is true that you have seen gypsies, why 'didn't you 'bring them?'
In fact, the triggering element, e.g. the negative ez or the interro-

gative ai, can be separated from the affected noun phrase by any
number of intervening clauses. -Thus, the partitive is possible in
(16)d, but not in (16)e: .
(16)d Ijitoai dirurik ematera alkatea beartu nai izan zuela esan
zidala sinisterazten ez, naiz saiatuko. '1 won't try to make people
believe that he told me that he had wanted to force the mayor, to

give the gypsies money'.
(16)e Ijitoai dirua (* dirurik) ,ematera alkatea beartu nai izan zuela
esan zidala sinisterazi bear det. '1 must try to make people believe
that .he told me that- he had wanted to force the mayor to give the
gypsies money'.
This fact, of course, was the reason why we used the notion of
command, in the formulation of Partitive Assignment give.n at the
beginning of this section. That the triggering element commands the
affected noun phrase, however, is a necessary but not a sufficient
condition for partitivization to be possible. A relative clause may
be commanded by a negative; hut if this relative clause has a definite
head noun phrase, it forms a syntactic island opaque to Partitive
Assignment. Note the following contrast:
(16)f Artzik il duen ijitorik ez degu ezagutzen. 'We don't know.a

gypsy who has killed bears'. .
(16)g Artzak il dituen ijitoa ez degu ezagutzen. 'We don't know
the gypsy who has killed bears'.
In (16)g the partitive could not be used: *artzik il duen ijitoa ez

degu ezagutzen.
From the fact that the triggering element need not be in the
same cl~use with the noun phrase Partitive Assignment operates on,
it can be inferred that this transfonnation must he postcyclic, that
is, unless one accepts a proposal recently made by P.A.M. Seuren.
This author argues that for the purpose of deciding whether a cer-
tain cyclic transformation can apply or not on a given cycle, the
grammar must be allowed to make use of information that is not
present in that cycle but is present in some higher one. (See P.A.M.
Seuren, Negative's Travels, ;in Seuren (ed.), Semantic Syntax,
Oxford 1974.)
If his view is right, Partitive Assignment could still be a cyclic
rule.
Up to now, we have talked about Partitive Assignment as if it
were a process completely unique to Basque. The moment has come
to bring up a parallel that will have occurred to many readers: the
rule that accounts for the distribution of unstressed any (and some
related forms) in English. This rule was introduced under the name
of Indefinite Incorporation by E. S. Klima in his pioneering ar-
ticle Negation in English, published in its final form in 1964
Fodor, J. J. Katz (eds.), The Structure of 'Language, p. 246-

(J. .A.
323), although based on research done nearly five years -earlier. In
subsequent years; the rule repeatedly figured in linguistic discussions.
J,. R. Ross used it in his dissertation Constraints on Variab,les in
Syntax (1967) as a typical example of a feature-changing rule (sec-
tion 5.1.3).
RI T. Lakoff discussed it in her dissertation Abstract Syntax and
Latin Complementation (M.I.T. Press, 1968), and compared it with
a similar rule in Latin (sections 4.1 and 4.5). She called it some-
any change (p. 111, 113), a clear misnomer, since neither is the
output of the rule necessarily any, nor its input some, as Klima was
careful enough to point out in his section 25.
R~ T. Lakoff also wrote an article in Language under the title
Some Reasons Why There Can't Be Any some-any Rule (Lg 45
(1969) p. 608..615). In it she shows, not that there is no some-any
Rule, as the title would lead one to expect, but, rather, that there is
such a rule, and that it has the property of being sensitive to presup-
positions held by the speaker. -
The differences between Basque Partitive Assignment and English
Indefinite Incorporation are clear. The latter does not introduce any
preposition (the English counterpart of the Basque postposition), and,
accordingly, is not restricted to prepositionless noun phrases. But no
less clear are the similarities. Both rules act on indefinite noun
phrases, without, however, moving them from whatever position they
may have in the sentence. Most importantly, they apply in virtually
identical environments.
This latter similarity is so striking that it can hardly be due to
chance. Basque and English are not genetically related; nor is it
likely that a rule of this scope and complexity should have made its
appearance in either language by way of some superficial process of
borrowing. Thus, the connection between the two processes must be
a structural one.
We do not know just what underlying factor characterizes the
contexts in which Indefinite Incorporation can apply in English.
Klima's introduction of the grammatico-semantic feature Affective
(op. cit. section 41) -a convenient move that greatly simplified
later discussions- did not solve the problem but merely named it.
Still, whatever its nature, the same factor that triggers Indefinite
In~orporation in English also triggers Partitive Assignment in Basque.
At this point, a question must arise. If the exact same factor
triggers both rules, why, then, are not the environments exactly iden-
tical? We know indeed that they are not. On the one hand, English
20
other does not .induce Indefinite Incorporation: I have'some other

friends, not *1 have any other friends, but Basque' beste, which
means 'other', does allow Partitive Assignment (see example (11)a) ..
On the other hand, Indefinite Incorporation can apply in the term
of comparison in an English comparative: Miren is more 'beautiful
tlutn any gypsy. This is not the case for Partitive Assignment in
Basque. We have:
(17)a Miren' ijitoa (*ijitorik) baifio ederragoa da. 'Miren is more

beautiful than a gypsy'.
In this construction, the partitive form cannot be used. One can

use indefinite forms with the prefix edo 'any', such as edozein 'any
kind of' (Spanish cualquier), or edonungo 'from anywhere'.' How-
ever, these forms correspond more closely to English stressed any,
than to the unstressed forms produced by Indefinite Incorporation.
See examples (17)b and (17)c.
(17)b Miren edozein ijito (*ijitorik) baifio ederragoa da. 'Miren is

more beautiful than any gypsy whatsoever'.
(l7)c Miren edonung-o ijitoa (*ijitorik) baifio ederragoa da. 'Miren
is more beautiful than any gypsy whatsoever' (literally: 'than a
gypsy from, any place whatsoever').
Our task is now to account for the discrepancy we observed

between the two rules. I will attempt an explanation in terms of
certain differences in structure between Basque and English. If this
explanation is correct, we can maintain that both rules are triggered
by an identical underlying factor.
My explanation is based on a generalization of a well-known
constraint. I want to generalize the constraint on backward pronom..
inalization (for which concept see J. R. Ross, On the Cyclic Na-
ture of English Pronomin'alization, To Honor Roman /akobson, 11,
p. 1669-1682) to cover all non..movement 'rules that make crucial
use of variables. Non..movem.ent rules is a more general tenn
than feature-changing rules, a designation I would like to avoid
anyway, because the status of features in syntax generally is not
very clear.
I will start from a formulation of this constraint given by
J. R. Ross in his dissertation Constraints on Variables in Syntax.
I quote from section 5.3.2:
(5.1-52).'- Condition on backward pronominalization.
If one element precedes another, the second can only pronomi-

nalize the first if the first is dominated by a subordinate clause
which does not dominate the second.
I submit that this can be generalized to all non-movement rules that

make cnlcial use of variables, as follows:
. Causality Constraint:
If an effect precedes its cause, the effect must be dominat-

ed by a subordinate clause which does not dominate the
cause.
Corollary: When cause and effect are clausemates, the

cause must precede the effect.
It is poss.ible to formulate a weaker form of the Causality Constraint
which is .reminiscent of Langacker'~ version of the -constraint on
backward pronominalization. For this version, see R. W. Langacker,
On. Pronominalization and the Chain of Command, in Reibel and
Schane, Modern Studies in English, 'or Ross's paraphrase of it in
Constraints on Variables in Syntax, section 5.3.2, formula (5.153).
Causality' Constraint (second version):
No effect can both command and precede its cause.
For a rule like pronominalization, which is not upward bounded,

the second version of the constraint is weaker than the first. The
second, but not the first, would allow backward pronominalization
from the rightmost into the leftmost of a pair of conjoined senten-
ces, something we know does not happen.
For upward bounded rules, however, it is easy to see that the
two versions are fully equivalent.
My 'phrasing of the Causality Constraint was, of course, very loose
and informal.' By cause, I mean the smallest constituent .indicated
in the structural description of the rule which can be said to trigger
the change. By effect, I mean the smallest constituent indicated
in the structural description of the rule which undergoes' the change
the rule is designed to carry out.
I do not propose the Causality Constraint as a global constraint,
156 R .. P. G. DE-RIJK
to b.e valid throughout the derivation, but as a purely local one, to

hold only at the point where the rule in question applies.
Even with these qualifications, my formulation of- the constraint
leaves much to be desired, but it will, do for the purpose at haild~
Consider the problem with beste and other. Since Basque, beste
'other' can induce the partitive on the noun phrase it introduces,
we will infer that English other has the same virtue with respect ,to
Indefinite Incorporation. However, because of the Causality Con-
straint, this virtue will never be actualized. Compare the order of
terms in the corresponding phrase beste adiskide batzuek and some
other friends. In Basque, there is no problem. The p,artitive is a
suffix OD the noun. -phrase, and be~'te invariably precedes the head
nOUD. Therefore, the partitivized form' beste adiskiderik can be gen-
erated. But, in English, the determiner some precedes other in the
surface structure, and, in all likelihood, in every underlying struc-
ture as well. Hence our Corollary prevents other' from -changing the
preceding some to any.
For the comparative, the same situation obtains in reverse. In the
English phrase more beautiful than any gypsy the factor that triggers
Indefinite Incorporation necessarily precedes the noun phrase any gyp-
sy, which can be, indeed, the rightmost constituent of the sentence.
But in the Basque phrase ijitoa baiiio ederrago, baiiio 'than' always
follows the noun ijito, which could be sentence initial. Assuming
that at' the moment when Partitive Assignment should apply, ijitoa
is no longer dominated by a subordinate clause, the Causality Con-
straint will bar the rule from applying.
It is true that this argument'is not absolutely airtight, since I do
not know in detail how comparatives are derived, either in English
or in Basque. To destroy it, on~ might argue that the surface structure
order does. not reflect the ,deep structure order, and that" Indefinite
Incorporation or ,Partitive Assignment .apply early enough as to be
dependent on this deeper order. That this may be the case is perhaps
not entirely inconceivable. Yet, for the time being, I can see'little
re~son to -believe in this counter-argument, especially if Partitive
Assignment is indeed, as I think it is, a postcyclic rule.
We haye left to show that the Causality Constraint is consistent
with the way Indefinite Incorporation and Partitive Assignment apply
in the other cases.,' We do not have to worry about affective
predicates (cf. examples (15)a - (15)i), since they take effect only
inside their sentential complements. No matter what the- linear order
is between the ,affected noun phrase and the ,affective predicate, the
Ca~sali~y, Constraint .is automatically satisfied..
PARTITIVE ASSIGNMENT 15'7
For English Indefinite Incorporation, the matter is 'relatively clear

with respect to the other conditioning environments of the rule. Con-
ditionals show an initial marker, the conjunction if, which ca~ be
taken to trigger the rule. Questions of all types are introduced by a
Wh-complementizer or something of the sort (22), probably 'at 'all
levels between deep and _shallow structure. As for negation, it is
generally agreed that it passes through sentence-initial posi~on, and,
then, goes on to preverbal position by the transformation of Neg.
Placement. Now, if Indefinite Incorporation precedes Neg. Place-
ment, we have no problem, for the negative morpheme will precede
any noun phrase in the -sentence: But if it follows, there is also no
problem; the Causality Constraint will explain nicely why Some
gypsy is not happy- cannot -be' converted by lndefinite Incorporation
to An.y gypsy is not happy.
So much for English. We now turn again to Partitive Assignment
in Basque. We will first look at conditional sentences. Consider (14)a.
( 14)a Ijitorik ikusten badezu, ... ' 'If you see gypsies, ... "
Sentence (14)a seems to contradict the Causality Constraint, be-

cause the partitive noun phrase ijitori1c 'gypsies' precedes the con-
ditional morpheme ba. Note, how,ever, that there is a more emphatic
variant of (14)a, namely (14)aa, which has another conditional
morpheme baldin 'if' in sentence-initial position:
(14)aa Baldin ijitorik ikusten badezu, ... 'If you see gypsies, ... '
I will assume, now, that all conditional sentences are introduced

by ba/din at some-'-}evel of underlying structure. Partitive Assignment,
then, takes place before baldin is deleted, generating (14la; or is
moved onto the finite verb, generating: ijitorik ikusten baldin badezu,
which is also a grammatical sentence.
To account for 'the partitive in ,questions, I will take a similar
tack. There is. a particle ea (often glossed in Spanish as a ver),
which optionally introduces dependent questions:
(22) For relevant discussions on the structure of E'nglish questions, see
C. L. Baker, "Notes on the Description of English Questions: The Role of an
Abstract Question Morpheme", Foundations of Language 6 (1970), p. 197-219, and
]. W. Bresnan, "'On Complementizers: Toward a Syntactic Theory of Complement
Types", Foundations of Lan.guage 6 (1970), p. 297-321.
NaturallYJ one need not accept the whole theoretical franlework of either of
these authors, in order to agree, that English questions have an initial marker
()f some sort. -
(12)dd ,Ea ijitorik ikusi duen galdetu diot~ '1 have asked .him if
he has' seen gypsies'.
Independent questions have emphatic variants with ea. So (12)a
has the variant (12)aa:
(12)a Ijitorik ikusi al dezu? 'Have you ~een gypsies?'
(12)aa Ea ijitorik ikusi dezun? 'I am asking you: have you seen
gypsies?' .
On the basis of thi.s evidence, I will assume that all questions
are introduced by ea and that Partitive Assignment precedes the
process by which ea is converted to preverbal al in Guipuzcoan, to
preverbal ahal in Labourdin, and to postverbal -a in Low Navarrese
and Souletin. Cf. Low Navarrese xitorik ikhusi duzuya? 'have you
seen gypsies?', where duzuya derives from duzu'+ a.
In this connection, it is interesting to report an observation made
by H. Gavel in his Grammaire Basque, Chapter 11, p. 33. Gavel
noticed that questions that are not syntactically marked as interro-
gative, but are marked only by intonation (e.g. etorriko zera? 'you'll
come?' instead of etorriko al zera? 'will you come?'); as a rule, do
not admit the partitive: *Ogirik nahi duzu? 'You want any 'bread?'
1t is natural to interpret the absence of the syntactic marking as the
absence of ea. What. is left is only a suprasegmental question
morpheme realized as a rising intonation at the end of the sentence.
Being sentence-final, it is barred from inducing the partitive by
virtue of the Causality Constraint.'
We \vill now consider negation. The English sentence No gypsy
came can be translated in three ways, depending on considerations
of topic and fOCllS. We have (18)a, (18)b and (18)c:
(18)a Ez zan etorri ijitorik (semantically unmarked form). 'No
gypsy came'.
(18)b Ez zan ijitorik etorri (ijito in focus). 'No gypsy came' (Le. 'It
was (the) gypsies who didn't come'). ,
(18)c Ijitorik ez zan etorri (ijito as topic). 'As for gypsies, none
came'.
I will postulate that at one stage (23) of their derivation, all
(23) I subscribe to a view 'of gramlnar in which negation starts out as a

higher predicate and is then lowered into its sentential complement by a cyclic
rule. As this rule, in all likelihood, is early enough to precede Partitive Assignment,
and as we defined the Causality Constraint as a local constraint,' these consic,-
erations are irrelevant to our present concern.
PARTITIVE ASSIGNl\JIENT 159
negatives have the form Ez S. In other words, Basque, which is an

underlyingly verb final language, nevertheless has presentential nega-
tion at some point in the derivational history of its negative sentences.
If this is correct, an underlying order for .all three sentences above
is given in (18)d:
(18)d *Ez ijitoa etorri zan.
(18)d is not a possible surface order, because the negation ez

will obligatorily attract the auxiliary zan.
(18)c, then, is derived by Topicalization. In Basque topics t
conserve any case-marker they may. have. Hence, Topicalization

follows all Case-Marking Rules. It is therefore not surprising to see,
from example (18)c, that it also follows Partitive Assignment.
Thus, in Basque as well as in English, we have found the operation
of the respective rules consistent with the Causality Constraint (quod
erat demonstrandum). I have not shown, of course, that the Causality
Constraint must be valid. Nor have I shown that the differences we
observed between Basque and English cannot be explained any other
way. "All I can hope to have shown is that the Causality Constraint
stands up to preliminary scrutiny, explains some otherwise puzzling
facts, and therefore deserves closer investigation.
This conclusion ought to have marked the end of this section.
But there is one aspect of Partitive Assignment we have still to
discuss, namely, its restriction to indefinite noun phrases. We will
now -study cases where it seems that a definite noun phrase has
ttndergone Partitive Assignment.
Elderly informants from Northern Guipuzcoa reported sentences
like the following as used by their parents:
(19)a Ez da gaur gure aitarik Donostira joango. 'My father won't

go to, San Sebastian today'.
(19)b Gaur gure aitarik Donostira joango balitz, legatza ekarriko
liguke. 'If my father were to go to San. Sebastian today, he would
bring us codfish'.
(19)c Gaur gure neskarik ikusi al dezu dantzan? 'Have you seen
our girl at the dance today?' '
In these sentences, the partitive noun phrase has a unique referent:

there is only 'one father in (19)a and (19)b, and (19)c could be spoken
by a member of a family with only one girl. So it seems that Partitive
Assignment has applied to underlying definite noun phrases.
160 R. P. G. DE' RIJK'
When I asked younger speakers ,about these sentences, tl1.eir

reactions varied. Some considered them totally uriacceptable. Others
found that they could be -used, but only .in case the speaker is very
angry or intensely impatient. One informant gave me this sentence
as one he would b,e apt to use himself:
(19)d Ez da gaur nere emazterik Donostira joango! 'No wife 'of

mine will go to San Sebastian today!"
He commented that this was a very emphatic emotional statement,

which must be pronounced with an angry intonation.
However) there is nothing particularly emphatic or emotional
about the next example, which is taken from a foreword written
by A. Iturria to the third edition (1956) of the famous novel Garoa:
(19)e' Bera ez rnintzeko, ez det emen here izenik aipatuko (p. vii).
.'Not to. hurt his feelings,' I won't mention here his name'.
In the examples we have seen so far,' ,we found, the partitive

occurring on an inalienably possessed noun phrase. There are also
examples of the partitive with a proper name. In the translation of
the four Gospels, Lau Elb~nielioak (Zarauz, 1961), brought out by
the Franciscans of Aranzazu, we read in a footnote to Lk. 2.43:
(19)f ... , orduan konturatuko ziran Maria ta Jose Jesus-ik etzala

an eta hilla asi ziran. ' ... , it was then that Mary and Joseph
must. have realized that Jesus was not there, and began to- look
for him'. - . . . -
We find such examples in other dialects too.

The next example is from the Souletin dialect of Tardets. It is
take.n from a story told by. Fabien Hastoy and cited 'by R. M. Azkue
in his work Euskale~riaren Yakintza, 11, p. 317.
(19)g ... Sanctificetur-ik' eztiizii haboro, -barda otsuak yan beiteit.

'. .. there is no Sanctificetur anymore, for begot eaten by a wolf
yesterday night'.
The following example is cited by H. Gavel in' his Grammaire

Basque, Chapter 11, p. 34.- He does not indicate the source of his
quotation, which is undoubtedly Labourdin.
(19)h Besubioko mendiak aurthiki zuen Stl eta hauts, eta etzen
Pompeirik gehiago izan. 'Mount Vesuvius threw up fire and ashes~
and there was no Pompeii anymore'.
Another example from Labourdin is found in the play Hilla

esposatu (ee1. Auspoa, 1965) written by Piarres Larzabal (born in
Ascain):'
(19)i Ttantta Adelak, ez du gehiago aitarik nahi (p. 118). 'Aunt

Adela doesn't want father anymore'.
Here aitarik stands for 'gure aitarik: the sentence is concerned

with the father of the speaker, the girl Mayi, not with the father of
Aunt Adela.
Domingo Aguirre's famous novel Garoa ('Fern') abounds with
examples of the type we are studying. With those, we are back in the
Guiptizcoan diale'ct, which Aguirre, though himself a speaker of
Bizcayan (born in Ondarroa), used in this novel, written around 1907.
We will quote six examples from it:
(19)j I ba-ua, Moxolorik ez den agertuko (p. 253). 'If you go,
Moxolo isn't going to appear'.
(19)k Ez nion nere haimenik ifiola emango (p. 228). 'Under no
circumstances would I give him my permission'.
(19)1 Ez da 'Kataliiiek eta amonak nai dutenik gertatuko oraingoan
(p. 217). 'This time, what Katalin and grandmother want, will
not happen'.
(19)m Baiiia gaur ez dezu nere arrebarik ikusiko (p. 247). 'But you
are not going to .see my sister today'. (Meant as a prohibition,
not as a prediction.)
(19)n Ez zan geiago Pedro Migelen izenik entzun Azkarragako ba-
serrian (p. 207). 'The name of Pedro Miguel wasn't heard anymore
on the Azkarraga farm'.
(19)0 Ez siiiistu nere burua botako dedanik, ez sifiistu! Ez nere
bururik, hesteren batena, zurea, hotako det... (p. 214). 'Don't
believe that I will throw my head (i.e. myself) down the cliffs,
don't believe it! ~ot my head, hut that of someone else, yours,
I will throw... ' .
Should we now relax the condition on Partitive Assignment, and

claim that the transformation applies to noun phrases which are
21
either indefinite, or proper names, or inalienably possessed? I think

not, for more than one reason.
First of all, we are bound to suspect that there is something
wrong with any rule plagued by a disjunctive condition. More often
than not, either two or more rules have been mashed together, or
a significant generalization has been missed.
Secondly, if we simply make Partitive Assignment applicable to
definite noun phrases, 'Ye fail to account for the typical flavar of
our example sentences. Compare e.g. (19)d with the more common
(19)dd:
(19)dd Ezda gaur nere emaztea Donostira joango! 'My wife won't
go to San Sebastian today!'
While there is no doubt that (19)d and (19)dd are cognitively

synonymous, (19)d is certainly more than a mere variant of (19)dd
generated by an optional application of Partitive Assignment to the
definite noun phrase nere emaztea 'my wife'.
Thirdly, our whole argument is base.d on. a misconception in the
first place. What reason do we have, after all, to assume that in
the examples we gave Partitive Assignment has applied to definite
noun phrases? Surely no reason of grammatical form, since possessed
noun phrases and proper names occur in definite as well as in
indefinite constntctions: gure neska bat 'a girl of ours' and Alberf
Einstein bat 'an Albert Einstein'. Nor do semantic considerations
involving reference imply anything about definiteness or indefiniteness.
Henry Kissinger and a certain Henry Kissinger are both uniquely
referring noun phrases. Yet, one is definite and the other is indefinite.
We thus find we have no real basis for the claim that Partitive
Assignment can apply to definite noun phrases. Still, our examples
are exceptional in some way, and we must try to account for that.
For this purpose, we ret~rn to sentence (19)d and ask what
happens when we substitute a transitive verb, say egin 'do' for the
intransitive verb joan 'go'. We do this because the subject of a
transitive verb will be in the ergative case, and, thus, unable to
undergo Partitive Assignment.
(20)a Nere emazteak ez du olakorik egingo. 'My wife won't do any

such thing'.
(20)b Nere emazte batek ez du olakorik egingo! 'A wife of mine
won't do any such thing!'
Now, (20)a with the definite noun phrase nere emazteak 'my
wife (ergative)', while a possible sentence, does not match (19)d
in emotional emphasis. Rather, what we get, with the same angry
intonation of (19)d, is (20)b, which has the indefinite noun phrase
nere emazte batek' 'a wife of mine (ergative)'. Of course, ,neither
(20)b nor (19)d contradicts the pragmatic assumption that a Basque
husband cannot have more than one wife.
On further analysis, (20)b turns out to be ambiguous. It may
mean (i) or (ii):
(i) It is inconceivable that someone who is mamed to me would

do any such thing.
(ii) . It- is inconceivable that someone who is like my wife is, would
do any such thing.
On interpretation (i), (20)b can be derive'd from (20)c by dalako-

Deletion.
(20)c Nere emaztea dalako batek ez du olakorik egingo! 'A wife

of mine won't do any such thing!'
The adjective dalako consists of three elements: the relational
suffix, -ko, the complementizer ~la and the copula da 'is'. It serves
to emphasize the functional character of the noun emazte here; in
other words, it brings out the opaque reading of (20)b. The normal
relativized form of the copula, dan 'who is', does not distinguish
between opaque and transparent readings.
I will not try to analyse the phrase nere emaztea dalako bat
here in terms of underlying stntcture. I may note, though, that apart
from the meaning we are concerned with here, namely the opaque
reading of 'one who is my wife", it can also have the meaning of
'one who passes for my wife'. Dalako-Deletion does nbt apply to
this counterfactual dalako.
On interpretation (ii), (20)b can be derived from (20)d by beze-
lako-Deletion.
(20)d Nere emaztea bezelako batek ez du olakorik egingo! 'Someone

like my wife won't do any such thing!'
.Bezela means 'like'; the relational suffix -ko is needed to turn

this into a prenominal modifier.
When the head of the partitive noun phrase is a proper noun,
we are usually dealing with a case of bezelako-Deletion. For instance,

jesus-ik in (19)f probably derives from jesus bezelakorik 'anyone
like Jesus'. (Note that like is a reflexive predicate.)
Yet, pro.per names can also co-occur with dalako, even though
they do not denote functions. Mugica's Diccionario Castellano-Vasco
gives this example (under tal, p. 1695): me 10 ha dicho un tal
Antonio: Andoni dalako batek esan dit ('A certain Anthony has
told me so'). And under llamado (p. 1125): un hombre llamado
Zacanas: Zakarias izeneko (izendun, dalako, ... ) gizon bat .('A man
called Zacharias'). L. Michelena has used this construction in one
of his essays: Zapata delako baten emaztea... ('The wife of a
certain Zapata... ') ft.litxelenaren Idazlan Hautatualc;, p. 242. In that
example, the word delako (an eastern dialectal variant of dalako)
could have been dispensed with. It is only there to make clear that
the preceding word Zapata is the name of a person.
It is likely that in all of these constructions, some form of the
word izen 'name', has been deleted. Most probably the instrumental
izenez 'by name'.
With these rules of bezelako-Deleti.on and dalako-Deletion (to
which we may add izeneko-Deletion), we have enough machinery
to account for the indefiniteness of the partitivized noun phrases
in our examples. In the case of (19)e, bere izenik 'any name of his',
or (19)n, Pedro Migelen izenik 'any name of Pedro Miguel', however,
we can also think of the fact that someone may be identifiable by
more than one name: a nick-name, or a special name as a bertsolari
('bard') or as a poet.
A last question remains. Why would the speaker have chosen an
indefinite noun phrase where he could have used a definite one?
The answer is interesting. Note that our set of examples consists
of negations, conditionals, and questions. Now, a negative statement
about some non-specific noun phrase implies the corresponding
negative statement with any specific noun phrase (taken from the
range of that non-specific noun phrase) substituted for the non-
specific on'e, but not vice-versa. So e.g., the statement I don't want
any book implies I don't want this book. For positive statements,
of course, this does not hold: I want a book does not imply
1 want this book. But for conditionals it does hold: If you want
to read any book, you are an intellectual implies If you want to
read this book, you are an intellectual. Therefore, in negations and
conditionals, indefinites make for stronger statements than definites
do. We now see the connection with the emotional ring attached to
many of the examples in our set. In an emotional frame of mind,
PARTITIVE ASSIGNMENT 16S
we tend to make stronger (more emphatic) statements than would

be strictly necessary.
It is therefore not surprising' that we find English examples
similar to the Basque ones. As J. D. McCawley has pointed out to
me, it may be just because he realizes that he has only one gall-
bladder, that an unwilling patient says to his surgeon: You shan't
take out any gall-bladder of mine!.
I do not see any general relationship between definites and
indefinites in questions. But in the case of our example (19)c, the
matter is clear enough. There, any answer to the indefinite question
will also be an answ,er to the definite question: Gaur gure neska
ikusi al dezu dantzan? 'Have you seen our girl at the dance today?',
without loss of information, because of the pragmatic knowledge on
the part of the speaker that there is only one girl in the family.
The indefinite question is, therefore, at least as strong as the definite
one would have been.
Now that we know that Partitive Assignment applies only to
indefinite noun phrases, it is interesting to note that sentential nouns,
namely those ending in -te' or -tze (depending on the verb), can take
the partitive ending in certain contexts without any special intonation.
This means that those sentential nouns (a type of embedded sen-
tence) must .be construed as indefinite, at least in affective contexts.
Examples are (with the verbal nouns joate 'going, to go', ikuste
'seeing, to see', and sifziste 'believing, to believe'):
(21)a Ijitoak bere alaba Donostira joaterik ez du nai. 'The gypsy

does, not want his daughter to go to San Sebastian'.
(21)b Nere emazteak ijito ori ikusterik uste al dezu? 'Do you think
that my wife would see that gypsy?'
(21)c Ipui an sifiisterik ezin dizut eskatu. '1 cannot ask you to
believe this story'.
'v. PARTITIVE MODIFIERS
Except for a few marked otherwise, all examples in the preceding

pages were taken from Guipuzcoan. But the phenomena we discussed
are not restricted to any particular dialect. In fact, the use of the
partitive in affective contexts is a constant feature of all Basque
,dialects from the earliest texts on.
This is not the case for the use of' the partitive suffix which
we are going to consider in this section, namely, that on (post-
nominal) modifiers. In aff~ctive contexts, the assignment of the
166 R. P.' G. DE RIJK
partitive ending to a postnominal modifier was impJicit in our

treatment in section IV. As suffixes in Basque are always added to
the last constituent of a noun phrase, the partitive will occur on
the modifier, if there is one, and not on the head noun. E.g.
(22) Ez det ijito itsusirik ezagutzen. 'I don't know an ugly gypsy'.
This section, however, will concern the use of the partitive on

postnominal modifiers in purely affirmative, usually existential,
contexts. -This is found in the Northern dialects: Labourdin, Low
Navarrese and Souletin. It does not happen in Guipuzcoan and
Bizcayan. For the High 'Navarrese area, I do not dispose of enough
data to warrant any conclusion.
As in all other cases, here too, the partitive ending appears only
on indefinites and only, in the absolute case.
Is this modifier -rik a basic use of -rik or a derived one? Strictly
speaking, it is neither. It is not a basic -rik, because it does not
function as a postposition. (Cf. our criterion (i) of section Ill.)
And if it is a derived -rik it must be derived by some rule other
J
than Partitive Assignment, since this rule only applies in affective

contexts, and makes no special provisions for modifiers. In fact,
I have no theory to propose to account for this use of -rik. This
being so, I will limit myself to illustrating the use of this -rik by
means of examples.
As demonstratives, being restricted to definite noun phrases, do
not qualify, there are only two kinds of postnominal modifiers left:
adjectives and (pseudo-)extraposed relative clauses. We will first
look at adjectives.
Consider the following ~entences in Labourdin:
(23)a Ijitoak ba dira Frantzian. 'There are gypsies in France'.

(23)b *Ijitorik ba da Frantzian. (Only possible as an exclamation,
see section III.)
(23)c Ijito ederrak ba dira Frantzian. 'There are beautiful gypsies
in France'.
(23)d, Ijito ederrik ba da Frantzian. 'There are beautiful gypsies
in France'.
(24)a Amoa ba dugu. 'We have wine'.
(24)b *Amorik ha dugu. (Same remark as for (23)b.)
(24)c Amo goxoa ba dugu. 'We have sweet wine'.
(24)d Arno goxorik ba dugu. 'We have sweet wine'.
(25)a Sagarrak ha ditugu. 'We have apples'.
PARTITIVE ASSIGNMENT 16'7
(25)h *Sagarrik b~ dugu. (Same remark as above.)

(25)c Sagar onak ha ditugu. 'We have good apples'.
(25)d Sagar onik ba dugu. 'We have good apples'.
According to the grammarian P. Lafitte (Grammaire basque,

160.3), the 'd-sentences are emphatic, whereas the c-sentences are
not. He does not explain in what way they are emphatic, Le. !n what
circumstances ,the. d-sentences would be used preferably to the
c-sentences.
Separate mention must be made of the partitive appearing on
adjectives in the comparative degree (suffix -ago), for this happens
also in some regions wh,ere ordinary adjectives do not take the
partitive in positive contexts. A case in point is the border area
between Guipuzcoan, an,d High Navarrese. Luis Michelena who was
born in that area (in Renteria), has written this sentence:
(26)a Erabaki gogorragorik artu bearrean aurkitu ziren hai Cesar

Rubicon ibaia igarotzerakoan eta bai Cortes ontziak zulatu
aurrean (Egan 1956 (1) p. 52, reprinted in Mitxelenaren
Idezlan Hautatuak, p. 325).: 'Both Caesar about to cross the
Rubicon river and Cortes before sinking the boats, found
themselves having to make a harder decision'.
In this dialect, it is not possible to change gogorrago 'harder' to

.gogor 'hard' while keeping the partitive.
Here is a shorter example, acceptable to Mr. Michelena, but
rejected by speakers from more central parts of Guiptizcoa:
(26)b Geroago liburu zaillagorik irakurriko dezttte.' 'Later on, you

will read more difficult (harder) books'.
With this, we leave adjectives and turn to relative clauses.

Relative clauses in Basque normally precede their antecedents.
However, they cal} become postnominal by a process I have called
'pseudo-extraposition, which is such that the relative clause and
its antecedent each carry their ,own determiner. (See my paper:
Relative Clauses in Basque: a Guided Tour, in Peranteau, Levi,
Phares (eds.), The Chicago Which Hunt (C.L.S., Chicago, 1972)
p. 115-135, especially p. 129..131.)
When its antecedent is indefinite, a pseudo-extraposed relative
clause can optionally take the partitive in some, but not all,
. Northern (sub)dialects.
The two examples that follow have been taken from a Basque
translation of Saki's short story The Story-Teller made by the late
Souletin author Jon Mirande, and published in the Basque literary
review Egan.
(27)a ...neskatxa ttipi" bat ba zen ona zeQik, (Egan 1956, p. 20).
' ... there was a little girl who was good,'.
(27)b Behin ba zen Bertha izeneko neskatxa ttipi bat ohi ez den
bezala ona zenik (Egan 1956, p. 21). 'Once upon a time, there
was a little girl called Bertha, who was extraordinarily good'.
Examples of this type abound in Leizarraga's New Testament

Version (1571):
(27)c Izan da gizon bat Iainkoaz igorria, Ioanes deitzen zenik
(In. 1.6). 'There was a man sent by God, who was called John'.
(27)d Zen bada Phariseuetarik edozein bat, Nikodemo deitzen ze-
nik (In. 3.1). 'There was, then, somebody of the Pharisees, who
.was called Nicodemus'.
And an example with two relative clauses on the same anteced-

ent, ikhuzgarri bat 'a (washing) pool':
(27)e Eta da Ierusalemen ardi plazan ikhuzgarri bat, Hebraikoz

Bethesda deitzen denik, bortz galeria dituenik (In. 5.2). 'And
there is in Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called
Bethesda in Hebrew, which has five porticoes'..
With the possible exception of (27)a, all preceding examples
involved non-restrictive (Le. appositive) relatives. Here is one with
a restrictive relative:
(27)f Bertze bat da testifikatzen duenik nitzaz (In. 5.32). 'There

is another who bears witness to me'.
There is another circumstance, not requiring pseudo-extraposition,

under which relative clauses can take the partitive ending. This is
when we have a so-called free relative, Le., a relative clause with a
pronoun as its antecedent. When this pronoun is indefinite, the rel-
ative clause may take the partitive in existential contexts. According
to L. Michelena (personal communication), this happens in the East-
ern dialects, that is, in all dialects except Guipuzcoan and Bizcayan.
We start with an example from Leizarraga's New Testament
Version:
(28)a' _ Ba da bilhatzen duenik eta jugeatzen- duenik (In. 8.50). 'There

is one who seeks it and who judges (it)'. .
A modem Souletin version has a different construction with no

partitive here:
(28)b Ba da nurbait hura txerkhatzen dianaeta jiijatzen diana (Os-

kaldiinaren giithiinak, p. 94). 'There is someone who seeks that
and who judges (it)'.
But Miss Madeleine de Jaureguiberry, born and raised in the

High.. Sou~etin dialect area (near Tardets), has infonned me that a
construction similar to .(28)a, namely (28)c, is possible in that dialect:
(28)c Ba da hari txerkhatzen dianik eta jiijatzen dianik. 'There is

one who seeks that and who judges (it)'. '
The next example is taken from Axular's famous work Gero, first
published, in 1643.
(28)d Izatu da erran duenik denbora eztela deus, hartzaz orhoitza-

penik eta pensatzerik eztenean (Chapter XII, p. 219). 'There
have been some (people) who have said that time is nothing
when one does not remember it and think about it'.
in connection with this example, L. Michelena has told me that

a similar sentence is ac~eptable in his dialect:
(28)e Esan duenik ba da, denbora eztela deus. 'There are some
(people) who have said that time is nothing'.
In fact, the following example, occurs in his writings:
(28)f Ba da oraindik haren _ateraldi eta erantzunak gogoan ditue-

nik Errenterian (Epilogue of Mitxelenaren Idaz.lan Hautatuak,
p. 367). 'There are still some (people) in Renteria who remem..
ber her witty remarks and repartees'.
VI. CONCLUDING REMARKS
It will be obvious to any reader that this essay is not much more
than a preliminary study of the problems surrounding the suffix
22
-rik. Various matters of great interest had to be ignored. Thus, no

mention was made of the partitivized complementizer -nik, which,
in the Guipuzcoan and Bizcayan dialects, may substitute for the un-
marked complementizer -la in what appears to be a subset of the-
class of affective contexts. A few examples to illustrate this:
(29)a Ez det uste laister itzuliko diranik. 'I don't think that they
will- come back soon'.
(29)b Ifiork ez daki ezkondua naizenik. 'Nobody knows that I am
married'.
(29)c Gezurra dirudi Mirenek ori esan duenik. 'It seems a lie that
Miren has said that'.
(29)d Uste al dezute dirua nik ostu dedanik? 'Do you think that
1 have stolen the money?'
Examples of a different type ~re shown in (30)a and (30)b.
(30)a Ez dakigu nor danik (La~ Eban;elioak, p. 246). 'We don't

know who he is'. .
(30)b Noiz etorriko ,:zeranikan ere _ez dakit. '1 don't even know
when you will come'.
The problems that these constructions raise will have to await

their solutions elsewhere.
Another- topic for further' research is the role of presuppositions
in those contexts where Partitive Assignment seems to be optional.
This role seems to be less important than it is in the case of English
Indefinite Incorporation. The informants I have asked did not dis-
criminate between (31)a and (31)b:
(31)a Sagarrik jaten badezu, autsiko dizkizut ezurrak. 'If you eat
(any) apples', I will break your bones'.
(31)b Sagarrik jaten badezu, zinera eramango zaitut. 'If you eat
(*any) apples, I will take you to the movies'.
Remember that these informants also accept (14)b, which I re-

peat here for convenience:
(14)b Babarrunik jaten badezu, zinera eramango zaitudala itzema-

ten dizut. 'If you eat (*any) beans, I promise that I will take
you to the movies'.
Last but not least, Basque Partitive Assignment should be com..

pared with similar rules in other languages. Among the candidates
are: Finnish Partitive Introduction (See Ross, Constraints on Varia-
bles in Syntax, Formula (5.85)) and Russian' Genitive Introduction
(idem, Formula (5.92)).
Talking about these non-movement rules, a lot more research
is also needed to test the Causality Constraint which I proposed
as a putative universal for all such rules that make crucial use of
variables.
But, gero gerokoak (24).
R. E F- ERE NeE S
D. Aguirre, Garoa, 3rd ed., Aranzazu, 1956.

P. de Axular: Gero (Originally Bordeaux, 1643, quoted from the edi-
tion by L. Villasante, Barcelona, 1964).
R. M. de Azkue: Diccionario Vasco-Espaiiol-Frances, Bilbao, 1905-6.
R. M. de Azkue: Euskalerriaren YakinizaI, II', Ill, IV, Madrid, 1935,
1942, 1945, 1947. '
R. M. de Azkue: Mor/ologia Vasca; New ed., Bilbao, 1969.
C. Leroy Baker, Notes on the Description of English Questions
Foundations of Language~ 6 (1970), p. 197~219.
J. M. de Barandiaran: El Mundo en la Mente Popular Vasca, I,
11, Ill, rv, San Sebastian, 1960..62.
J. de Beriayn: Tratado de como se ha de air missa, Pamplona, 1621.
J. W. Bresnan: On Complementizers, Foundations of Language, 6
1970), p. 297-321.
I. M. Echaide: Tratado de Sujijaci6n, 2nd ed., San Sebastian, 1931.
B. d'Etxepare: Linguae Vasconum Primitiae) Bordeaux, 1545. (New
ed., San Sebastian, 1968).
J. W. van Eys: Grammaire comparee des dialectes basques, Paris,
1879.
(24) A Basque saying: 'Later things for later'. Right now, however, I wish
to thank my many friends and patient informants all over the Basque Country
for the great help they have been to me in the procesSI of gathering the data. They
are too many to list. here, but I can'not re.frain from mentioning the names' of a
few who have been especially helpful in this connection: Miss Mari-Carmen Gar-
mendia, Miss Mari..Pilar Lasarte, Mr. Xabier Unzurrunzaga, Mr. Felipe Yurra-
mendi. I am also greatly indebted to Prof. D.r. Luis Michelena for a great deal
of valuable information and help, generously offered. I am very grateful too to
Prof. Dr, ,William H. Jacobsen, Jr. and Mrs. Virginia Jacobsen for their constant
encQuragement and for many substantial suggestions, stylistic corrections) and
proof-reading.
172 R. P. G. DE, RIJK
.s. Garmendia: Printze Txikia, San Sebastian) 1970 (Translation of:

A. de St. Exupery: ,Le Petit Prince) .
.H. Gavel: Grammaire basque, "Bayonne, 1929.
J. H. 'Greenberg ,(ed.): Ul1iversals of Language, M.I.T. Press 1963
(includes Greenberg's paper: Some.Universals of Grammar with
Particular Reference to the Order of Meaningful Elements" p. 73-
113).
'M. ,Harriet: Gramatica escuaraz eta francesez,Bayonne, 1741.
J. Ithurry: Grammaire basque, 1895.
E. S. Klima': Negation in English, J. A. Fodor, J. J. Katz (eds.)
The Structure of Language, 1964 (p. 246-32.3),
P. Lafitte: Grammaire basgue (Navarro-Labourdin Litteraire). Re-
vised edition, Bayonne. 1962.
R. T. L,akoff: Abstract Syntax and Latin Complementation, M.I~T.
Press) ,1968.
R. T. Lakoff: Some Reasons Why There Can't Be Any some-any
-Rule, Language, 45 .(1969) p. 608-615.
R. W. 'L'an:gacker: O'n Pronominalization .and the Chain .of Com-
mand. Reibel and Schane: Mqdern Studies in "English, 1969,
p. 160.;186.
M. de L'arramendi: El 'impossible vencido. Arte de la Lengua Bas-
congada, Salamanca, 1729.
P.cLarzab'al: Hillci'Esposatu (ColeccionAuspoa, 1965).
F. Lecluse: Grammaire basque, Toulouse-Bayonne, 1826. '
I. 'Leizarraga: ~I. Lei9arraga's baskische Rucher von 1571 (Includes
his New Testament Version). Edited by' Th. Linschmann and
H. Schuchardt, Strassburg, 1900.
L. -'Michelena: -'Fon'etica,Historica Vasca, San'Sebastian, 1961.
L. 'Michelena: ,Textos Arcaicos Vascos, Madrid, 1964.
L. Mich,elena: Mitxelenaren Idazlan Hautatuak, Bilbao, 1972. (Mi..
,c.helena's 'selected 'writings, edited by"P. Altuna).
P. Mugica: Diccionario Castellano-Vasco, Bilbao, 1965.
A. d'Oihenart: Les Proverbes basques recueillis par le Sr. d'Oihenart,
plus les.poesies basques du mesme Auteur, ~Paris, 1657.
(I have used the recent, edition by 'Larresoro; Oihenarte: Atsoti-
, tzak eta 'Neuttitzak; San Sebastian, 1971).
'J. R.'Ross: On the Cyclic Nature of English Pronominalization, To
Honor Roman.Jakobson, 11, p. 1669.. 1682, The Hague, 1967.
J. R. -Ross: Constraints on Variables in -Syntax, unpublished ,M.I.T.
doctoral dissertation, Cambridge (Mass~), 1967.
R. P. G. 'de Rijk: Is Basque an S.D.V. language? Pontes Linguae
Vasconum, 1 (1969), p. 319-351.
R. P. G. de Rijk: Relative Clauses in Basque: a Guided Tour. In:

Peranteau, Levi, Phares (eds.), The Chicago Which Hunt (C.L.S.,
Chicago 1972), p. 115-135.
J. M. Sadock: Queclaratives, Papers from the Seventh Regional
Meeting Chicago Linguistic Society (1971), p. 223..231.
P. A. M. Seuren: Negative's 'Travels. In: Seuren (ed.) Semantic
Syntax, Oxford, 1974.
Oskaldunaren Guthilnak (a prayer..book), Bayonne, 1946.
A. Zabala: Bertsolarien Txapelketa 1960 (Colecci6n Auspoa).

Partitive Assignment in Basque

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Partitive Assignment in Basque

I. PREFIXES AND SUFFIXES

alleged examples, however, are not. examples of prefixation but of

na lege ote... euskaldunontzat? (Is) what he says ... perhaps the

that they have been walking late".

The most, obvious examples of' prefixes in derivational morpho..

rect object (dative). The absence of a suffix on bi musu two kisses

II. THE SUFFIX -RIK: VIEWS OF OLDER GRAMMARIANS

minal declensions to avoid certain vowel sequences conside"red cacophonic.

been given different names by different grammarians. The first author

phrases: le n'ai pas d'argent, a..t.. il de l'argent? on ne peut ,dire

The partitive is treated in 470 (p. 431), where we find-enumerated

Le partitif a plusieurs emplois, assez differents les uns des

exact size of which is not know or is irrelevant. To illustrate with

11 y a vingt mille gitans en France. 'There are twenty thousand gyp-

In Basque, the use of the partitive suffix in affirmative contexts

( l)a * Ijitorik ba da Frantzian.

(l)b Ijitoak ba dira Frantzian. 'There are gypsies in France'.

(14) Contrary to this affirmation, I know of one. Guipuzcoan author, Salvador

In the Northern dialects of Basque, the partitive can be used. with

Ill. BASIC USES OF THE PARTITIVE

Most instances of partitive -rik arise as the result of a transfor-

(i) In its basic use, -rik functions as a postposition: it indicates a

In accordance with these criteria, two -possibly related- uses

here to the adjective eder 'heautiful' by a role of concord operative

The adjective leen 'first' functions as a superlative. It induces

These are all positive assertions where the presence of a quanti-

(The meaning of (3)e or (3)f is the same as that of (3)d).

showing that the phon'ological rule of Vowel Truncation which I

One important observation before closing this section. The par-

IV. pERIVED USES OF -THE PARTITIVE

Consider sentenc"e (4):

Negating (4), 'we get se~tence (5):

negative ez attracts the auxiliary degu, thus forming one phonologi..

(6)a Ijitoa ikusi degu. 'We have seen a gypsy'.

(8)a Ez degu ijitorik ikusi. 'We haven't seen a gypsy'.

This is a strange, Of, at least, unexpected, situation. Can we

(21) The notion of "command" is due to R. w. Langacker. In his paper

phrase. What it .does .is Chomsky-adjoin the postposition -rik to the

Determiner Deletion, however, is needed anyway, regardless of

We have seen Partitive Assignment applying in negative contexts.

(i) Presence of a word meaning 'only': bakarrik, soillik, txoilki.

It is likely that an underlying negative accounts for the occur..

(10)b Inork ez zukean egingo orrelako astakeririk, Nixonek bai.

If the widely held view among transformational grammarians is

negative only in so far as the possibility of a negative ,answer is

'Note the contrast between (13)e and (13)f:

(13)e Eliza ori zarberritzeko, zeifiek' emango luke dirurik? 'Who

This terminates our listing of the contexts in which Partitive

(16)a Ijitorik -ikusi dezula uste a1 du Mirenek? 'Does Miren think

In fact, the triggering element, e.g. the negative ez or the interro-

believe that he told me that he had wanted to force the mayor, to

(16)f Artzik il duen ijitorik ez degu ezagutzen. 'We don't know.a

In (16)g the partitive could not be used: *artzik il duen ijitoa ez

Fodor, J. J. Katz (eds.), The Structure of 'Language, p. 246-

other does not .induce Indefinite Incorporation: I have'some other

(17)a Miren' ijitoa (*ijitorik) baifio ederragoa da. 'Miren is more

In this construction, the partitive form cannot be used. One can