The category of Number in Basque: II. Prehistoriacal and typological aspects

Abstract

In this second and last part of the article about the grammatical number in Basque, it is discussed what the state of affairs in prehistorical periods may have been like, taking historical data as a starting point. In Point 3, the different sectors of the morphology are analised in successive subpoints: nouns, demonstratives, indefinite pronouns, personal pronouns and verbal morphs. In the first two of them, the problem of the origin of the plural is described in detail, listing pros and cons of each possible interpretation. In 3.4, several formal similarities between some personal pronouns and certain plural morphs are pointed out, and in 3.5 the pronominal origin of the verbal marks of person are analised from the point of view of the category of grammatical number. In Point 4, the conclusion reached –i.e., the absence of grammatical number in old Basque, except for 1st and 2nd person pronouns– is confronted with the implicational hierarchy about number put forward by typological research.