Gender[erg]: gender agreement with the ergative argument
Gender[erg]
Finite verbs in many Indo-European languages agree in person and number with their subject. Some languages in other families are head-marking, which means that the verbal morphology can cross-reference multiple core arguments.
In Basque (a polypersonal language), certain verbs overtly mark agreement with up to three arguments: one in the absolutive case, one in ergative and one in dative. Thus in dakarkiogu “we bring it to him/her”, akar is the stem (ekarri = “bring”), d stands for “it” (absolutive argument is the direct object of transitive verbs), ki stands for the dative case, o stands for “he” and gu stands for “we” (ergative argument is the subject of transitive verbs).
In the informal register, there are also separate forms for masculine and feminine arguments, although gender is otherwise not distinguished in Basque.
Gender[erg]is the gender of the ergative argument of the verb.Gender[dat]is the gender of the dative argument of the verb.
Masc: masculine ergative argument
Examples
- [eu] ukan ezak “have it”
Gender[erg]=Masc|Number[erg]=Sing|Person[erg]=2|Polite[erg]=Inf|Number[abs]=Sing|Person[abs]=3(imperative addressing a man)
Fem: feminine dative argument
Examples
- [eu] ukan ezan “have it”
Gender[erg]=Fem|Number[erg]=Sing|Person[erg]=2|Polite[erg]=Inf|Number[abs]=Sing|Person[abs]=3(imperative addressing a woman)