Weather expressions in Basque
A typological perspective
Iñigo Arteatx | Begoñako Andra Mari Teacher Training University College, BAM
Xabier Artiagoitia | University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU
We make two claims regarding weather expressions in Basque: first, based on Eriksen et al.’s (2010) typology, we show that Basque tends towards the argument type (and less frequently so to the
predicate-argument type) when coding dynamic (precipitation or other) events and to both the argument and the predicate type when
coding static events; Basque often has transitive structures (i.e. both transitive predicate and argument transitive types),
apparently a rare typological feature. Second, with respect to two key issues in the study of weather predicates within Generative
Grammar, we claim (a) that Basque supports the view that both lexicalizations of weather verbs (unaccusative and
unergative/transitive) are possible across languages, as argued by Bleotu (2015) and
Levin & Krejci (2019); and (b) that the empty pro subject of
Basque transitive weather constructions is closer to a quasi-argument (Chomsky 1981;
Levin & Krejci 2019) rather than to a true expletive.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Weather expressions and linguistic typology
- 3.The place of Basque weather expressions in linguistic typology
- 3.1A description of Basque weather expressions
- 3.1.1Weather expressions with intransitive verbs
- 3.1.2Weather expressions with transitive verbs
- 3.2The place of Basque within EKK’s typology
- 3.1A description of Basque weather expressions
- 4.Grammatical theory and weather phenomena
- 4.1The issue of unaccusative and unergative verbs
- 4.2The issue of the subject of weather expressions
- 5.The contribution of Basque to the theoretical issues on weather expressions
- 6.Conclusions
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
- Abbreviations
-
References -
Sources of examples
Published online: 19 January 2022
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.20036.art
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.20036.art
References
Alba-Salas, Josep
Aldai, Gontzal
Artiagoitia, Xabier
Benincà, Paola & Guglielmo Cinque
Berro, Ane & Ricardo Etxepare
Bleotu, Adina Camelia
2015 Towards a theory of
denominals in English and
Romanian. Venezia: Università Ca’ Foscari PhD dissertation.
Eriksen, Pål K., Seppo Kittilä & Leena Kolehmainen
Etxeberria, Urtzi
Etxepare, Ricardo
Fábregas, Antonio
Fernández Soriano, Olga
Hale, Ken & Samuel Jay Keyser
Holmberg, Anders & Urpo Nikkane
Igartua, Ivan
2020 Basque
among the world’s languages: A typological approach. In Ekaitz Santazilia, Dorota Krajewska, Eneko Zuloaga & Borja Ariztimuño (eds.), Fontes
Linguae Vasconum 50 urte. Ekarpen berriak euskararen ikerketari. Nuevas aportaciones al estudio de la lengua
vasca, 329–349. Iruña: Nafarroako Gobernua. 

Krejci, Bonnie
Laka, Itziar
Levin, Beth
1983 On
the nature of ergativity. Cambridge MA: MIT PhD dissertation.
Levin, Beth & Bonnie Krejci
Levin, Beth & Malka Rappaport Hovav
2008 L’aspect,
les auxiliaires ‘ȇtre’ et ‘avoir’ et l’hypothèse inaccusative dans une perspective comparative
français/italien. Venezia & Vincennes-Saint Denis: Università Ca’ Foscari & Université de Paris VIII PhD dissertation.
Mettouchi, Amina & Mauro Tosco
Ortiz de Urbina, Jon
Paykin, Katia
2003 Noms
et verbes météorologiques: Des matières aux
événements. Lille: Université de Lille III PhD dissertation.
Ruwet, Nicolas
Stalmaszczyk, Piotr
Svenonius, Peter
Thráinsson, H. Höskuldur, Hjalmar P. Petersen, Jógvan í Lon Jacobsen & Zakaris Svabo Hansen
Sources of examples
Corpus of Contemporary Basque
https://www.ehu.eus/en/web/eins/egungo-testuen-corpusa-etc- (last
access 26 November
2021)