SOME PARAMETERS IN THE GRAMMAR OF BASQUE (SYNTAX, LINGUISTIC THEORY, ERGATIVE, SPAIN)

In this study, I concentrate on some key aspects of Basque in order to lay out a basic description of this language from a GB perspective and to check relevant points of the theory against the evidence from an apparently highly marked isolate language.; The first chapter deals with ergativity. I show that, despite morphological ergativity, key structures which discriminate subjects from objects uniformly identify the ergative and the absolutive argument of intransitives as 'subjects'. Furthermore, building on Levin's (1983) analysis of izan (intransitive) verbs as unaccusative predicates I show Basque to belong to the 'extended ergative' type. To capture this, a case assignment system is proposed which expresses at S-structure the generalization that all and only D-subjects are marked ergative and all and only D-objects are marked absolutive.; Chapter Two deals with the configurationality parameter. Despite free word order, I present some subject/object asymmetries which can be accounted for in a natural way only by positing a configurational structure where subject NP's c-command object NP's but not viceversa.; Chapter Three considers the pro-drop parameter. I claim AGR in Basque includes three distinct feature matrices with case specifications for Ergative, Absolutive and Dative. Following Huang's (1984) analysis of pro identification, I claim Basque to be an extended pro-drop language with both subject and object pro's. This is directly linked to the extended agreement pattern of Basque verbs. Some deviations from the expected case marking patterns in impersonal sentences follow directly from the case marking system proposed here assuming that O-role cannot be assigned to certain non-canonical assignees.; Finally, in Chapter Four, an alternative to Horvath's (1981) FOCUS-parameter is presented which explains the syntax of question and focus formation in Basque. Rather than the existence of a FOCUS position for wh-phrases and foci distinct from SPEC, I claim the parameter to be the level at which both move to SPEC. Wh-operators move at S-structure in Basque and English, while focus operators move to SPEC at S-structure in Basque, but at LF in English. The apparent pre-verbal position of these operators is claimed to follow from general independent processes like INFL-to-C movement.