Ergative Parallels in Basque and Ibero-Romance Sentences

The typological diversity of ergative languages is noted & morphological & syntactic ergatives are differentiated: it is noted that the latter are in a significant minority. An analysis of Basque ergativity reveals that it is not of a pure morphological type, as the distinction between the ergative & absolutive is a feature relevant for its syntactic organization. Also, in the course of diachronic contacts with Indo-European languages, Basque ergativity has been influenced by nominativity. However, under the influence of Basque ergativity, many constructions in Spanish demonstrate ergative characteristics: some parallels between Spanish constructions & ergative structures in Basque are identified. 60 References. Z. Dubiel