1. Family: Basque
  2. Genus: Basque

Basque

WALS coordinates: 43° N, 3° W

spoken in France, Spain

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Basque
Routledge:
    Other:
    • Basque (Central),
    • Basque, central
    ISO 639-3:

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Phonology
    Consonant Inventories Average
    Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
    Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately high
    Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In plosives alone
    Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems None missing in /p t k b d g/
    Uvular Consonants None
    Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
    Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
    The Velar Nasal No velar nasal
    Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
    Front Rounded Vowels None
    Syllable Structure Complex
    Tone No tones
    Absence of Common Consonants All present
    Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
    Morphology
    Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively concatenative
    Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives Monoexponential case
    Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 4-5 categories per word
    Locus of Marking in the Clause Double marking
    Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases Dependent marking
    Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Inconsistent or other
    Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Weakly suffixing
    Reduplication No productive reduplication
    Case Syncretism Core cases only
    Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Not syncretic
    Nominal Categories
    Number of Genders None
    Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems No gender
    Systems of Gender Assignment No gender
    Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural clitic
    Occurrence of Nominal Plurality All nouns, always obligatory
    Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem
    The Associative Plural Unique periphrastic associative plural
    Definite Articles Definite word distinct from demonstrative
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No inclusive/exclusive
    Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Three-way contrast
    Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
    Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Related for all demonstratives
    Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
    Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns Binary politeness distinction
    Indefinite Pronouns Interrogative-based
    Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Differentiated
    Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking
    Number of Cases 10 or more cases
    Asymmetrical Case-Marking Syncretism in relevant NP-types
    Position of Case Affixes Postpositional clitics
    Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation
    Ordinal Numerals First, two-th, three-th
    Distributive Numerals Marked by suffix
    Numeral Classifiers Absent
    Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally different
    Nominal Syntax
    Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
    Possessive Classification No possessive classification
    Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Highly differentiated
    Adjectives without Nouns Without marking
    Action Nominal Constructions Sentential
    Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
    Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Identity
    Verbal Categories
    Perfective/Imperfective Aspect Grammatical marking
    The Past Tense Present, no remoteness distinctions
    The Future Tense Inflectional future exists
    The Perfect Other perfect
    Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Mixed type
    The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
    The Prohibitive Normal imperative + normal negative
    Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of system
    The Optative Inflectional optative absent
    Situational Possibility Affixes on verbs
    Epistemic Possibility Affixes on verbs
    Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking Overlap for both possibility and necessity
    Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality Indirect only
    Coding of Evidentiality Separate particle
    Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect Tense
    Verbal Number and Suppletion None
    Word Order
    Order of Subject, Object and Verb SOV
    Order of Subject and Verb SV
    Order of Object and Verb OV
    Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb XOV
    Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Postpositions
    Order of Genitive and Noun Genitive-Noun
    Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
    Order of Demonstrative and Noun Noun-Demonstrative
    Order of Numeral and Noun Numeral-Noun
    Order of Relative Clause and Noun Relative clause-Noun
    Order of Degree Word and Adjective Degree word-Adjective
    Position of Polar Question Particles Other position
    Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase
    Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Final subordinator word
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase OV and Postpositions
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun OV and RelN
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun OV and NAdj
    Simple Clauses
    Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Active-inactive
    Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Active - inactive
    Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Ergative
    Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject affixes on verb
    Verbal Person Marking Both the A and P arguments
    Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking No zero realization
    Order of Person Markers on the Verb P precedes A
    Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Indirect-object construction
    Reciprocal Constructions Distinct from reflexive
    Passive Constructions Present
    Antipassive Constructions Oblique patient
    Applicative Constructions No applicative construction
    Periphrastic Causative Constructions Purposive but no sequential
    Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
    Negative Morphemes Negative particle
    Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Asymmetric
    Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Cat
    Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Predicate negation also present
    Polar Questions Question particle
    Predicative Possession 'Have'
    Predicative Adjectives Nonverbal encoding
    Nominal and Locational Predication Different
    Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
    Comparative Constructions Particle
    Complex Sentences
    Relativization on Subjects Gap
    Relativization on Obliques Not possible
    Purpose Clauses Deranked
    'When' Clauses Balanced/deranked
    Reason Clauses Balanced/deranked
    Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced
    Lexicon
    Hand and Arm Different
    Finger and Hand Different
    Numeral Bases Hybrid vigesimal-decimal
    M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
    N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns
    Tea Words derived from Sinitic cha