Publication Details
Title: An Overview of Basque Locational Cases: Old Descriptions, New Approaches
Author: I. Ibarretxe-Antunano
Group: ICSI Technical Reports
Date: July 2001
PDF: ftp://ftp.icsi.berkeley.edu/pub/techreports/2001/tr-01-006.pdf
Overview:
Basque, a language isolate spoken on both sides at the western end of the Pyrenees, has very rich lexical and grammatical resources for expressing space. There are five different locational cases and over thirty postpositions, also inflected with these cases, that allow fine and detailed descriptions of space. Traditional accounts on locational cases are good sources for descriptive as well as etymological information. However, when it comes to the explanation and understanding of the conceptualisation of space and motion in Basque, these studies do not offer any insights. In this paper, I present a critical overview of the semantic descriptions provided by these traditional accounts. Section 1 gives a brief tour of the Basque case system. Section 2 discusses those characteristics particular to locational cases. Section 3 describes the main five locational cases in more detail. Section 4 points out areas for further research, areas that posit problems for traditional accounts and possible ways to solve them. Section 5 briefly outlines the main spatial postpositions and some of their special characteristics. The main goal of this paper is to provide a useful background on Basque loctional cases for future studies on the conceptual system of space and motion in this language.
Bibliographic Information:
ICSI Technical Report TR-01-006
Bibliographic Reference:
I. Ibarretxe-Antunano. An Overview of Basque Locational Cases: Old Descriptions, New Approaches. ICSI Technical Report TR-01-006, July 2001
Author: I. Ibarretxe-Antunano
Group: ICSI Technical Reports
Date: July 2001
PDF: ftp://ftp.icsi.berkeley.edu/pub/techreports/2001/tr-01-006.pdf
Overview:
Basque, a language isolate spoken on both sides at the western end of the Pyrenees, has very rich lexical and grammatical resources for expressing space. There are five different locational cases and over thirty postpositions, also inflected with these cases, that allow fine and detailed descriptions of space. Traditional accounts on locational cases are good sources for descriptive as well as etymological information. However, when it comes to the explanation and understanding of the conceptualisation of space and motion in Basque, these studies do not offer any insights. In this paper, I present a critical overview of the semantic descriptions provided by these traditional accounts. Section 1 gives a brief tour of the Basque case system. Section 2 discusses those characteristics particular to locational cases. Section 3 describes the main five locational cases in more detail. Section 4 points out areas for further research, areas that posit problems for traditional accounts and possible ways to solve them. Section 5 briefly outlines the main spatial postpositions and some of their special characteristics. The main goal of this paper is to provide a useful background on Basque loctional cases for future studies on the conceptual system of space and motion in this language.
Bibliographic Information:
ICSI Technical Report TR-01-006
Bibliographic Reference:
I. Ibarretxe-Antunano. An Overview of Basque Locational Cases: Old Descriptions, New Approaches. ICSI Technical Report TR-01-006, July 2001