| Voice marking | Proper marker | no | FYI: in Basque, a superficial observation of pairs of sentences such as antipassives and transitives might suggest an analysis in terms of equipollent voice marking. However, the relationship between transitive and antipassive does not involve any specific marking of the valency alternation. The choice of ‘have’ as the auxiliary and of ‘be’ is a mere consequence of the fact that the overwhelming majority of Basque verbs only have analytic finite forms, and independently of any possible kind of involvement in valency alternations, the auxiliary is automatically ‘have’ if the coding frame of the verb includes a slot for an ergative-marked noun phrase, and ‘be’ if this is not the case. Consequently, in spite of this difference in the verb forms, antipassive alternation is not an instance of equipollent voice marking, but rather of the particular type of flexivalency designated in this book as P-ambitransitivity (Creissels 2021: 268).
in the analytical verb forms of many languages, auxiliary selection is sensitive to transitivity. However, in all the cases I am aware of, the coincidence between auxiliary choice and syntactic transitivity of the clause as defined in this book is not absolute. For example, in Basque, the selection of ‘have’ in the role of auxiliary correlates with the presence of an ergative-marked term (Creissels 2021: 149). |
| Voice marking | Lookalike marker | no | |
| Voice marking | Synthetic marker | n/a | |
| Voice marking | Analytic marker | n/a | |
| Flagging | S-argument flagging | no | Basque shows double-marking patterns and ergative-indirective alignment: subjects of intransitive verbs and direct objects appear in the unmarked absolutive (Zúñiga and Fernández 2021: 623).
FYI: In some varieties of Basque, the P omission with the generic or non-specific-P argument entails a change of coding of A into S. However, this is rare and non-standard oral. Typically, the A remains ergative when P is omitted (p.c. with Beatriz Fernández). |
| Flagging | P-oblique flagging | yes | The P argument occurs as a direct object in the transitive clause. Still, it is demoted to an oblique in the LCA (lexically constrained antipassive), appearing in the instrumental or in the comitative (or in the inessive) (Zúñiga and Fernández 2021: 630). |
| Flagging | P-oblique unflagging | no | |
| Flagging | P-oblique flagging variation | yes | The P argument occurs as a direct object in the transitive clause. Still, it is demoted to an oblique in the LCA (lexically constrained antipassive), appearing in the instrumental or in the comitative (or in the inessive) (Zúñiga and Fernández 2021: 630). |
| Indexation | S-argument indexed | yes | Intransitive clauses have only one argument and are headed by either simplex monovalent verbs or periphrastic predicates with the intransitive auxiliary. Unaccusatives are the default option; their subject appears in the absolutive and triggers S-indexing on the intransitive auxiliary izan ‘be1’ (Zúñiga and Fernández 2021: 623).
Most unergatives are compound predicates of the [noun + egin ‘do’] type; their subject appears in the ergative and triggers A-like agreement on the transitive auxiliary *edun ‘have’ (Zúñiga and Fernández 2021: 623). |
| Indexation | S-argument indexation conditioned | no | |
| P-individuation properties | P incorporated: Generic (non-specific) | n/a | |
| P-individuation properties | P incorporated: Indefinite (non-specific) | n/a | |
| P-individuation properties | P incorporated: Referential | n/a | |
| P-individuation properties | P oblique: Generic (non-specific) | no | Semantically, neither low individuation nor low affectedness of P seem to appropriately describe what triggers the Basque alternation (...). Remembering, mocking, or enjoying something that is marked in the absolutive versus the instrumental/comitative does not appear to be related to either low-transitivity value in the sense of Hopper and Thompson (1980) (Zúñiga and Fernández 2021: 636). |
| P-individuation properties | P oblique: Indefinite (non-specific) | no | Semantically, neither low individuation nor low affectedness of P seem to appropriately describe what triggers the Basque alternation (...) remembering, mocking, or enjoying something that is marked in the absolutive versus the instrumental / comitative does not appear to be related to either low-transitivity value in the sense of Hopper and Thompson (1980) (Zúñiga and Fernández 2021: 636). |
| P-individuation properties | P oblique: Referential | yes | Semantically, neither low individuation nor low affectedness of P seems to appropriately describe what triggers the Basque alternation; generic or non-specific P arguments are routinely expressed via omission from the clause, and remembering, mocking, or enjoying something that is marked in the absolutive versus the instrumental /comitative does not appear to be RELATED to either low-transitivity value in the sense of Hopper and Thompson (1980) (Zúñiga and Fernández 2021: 636). |
| P-individuation properties | P eliminated: Generic (non-specific) | yes | (...) generic or non-specific P arguments are routinely expressed via omission from the clause (Zúñiga and Fernández 2021: 636). |
| P-individuation properties | P eliminated: Indefinite (non-specific) | yes | (...) generic or non-specific P arguments are routinely expressed via omission from the clause (Zúñiga and Fernández 2021: 636). |
| P-individuation properties | P eliminated: Referential | no | |
| P-oblique affectedness | Less affected P-oblique | no | Semantically, neither low individuation nor low affectedness of P seem to appropriately describe what triggers the Basque alternation (Zúñiga and Fernández 2021: 636). |
| P-constraining properties | Animacy constraints on P-oblique demotion | no | |
| P-constraining properties | Person constraints on P-oblique demotion | no | |
| P-constraining properties | Number constraints on P-oblique demotion | no | |