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Article published In: Studies in Language
Vol. 46:3 (2022) ► pp.718–751

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Weather expressions in Basque

A typological perspective

 | Begoñako Andra Mari Teacher Training University College, BAM
ORCiD logo with link | University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU
Published online: 19 January 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.20036.art
Abstract
We make two claims regarding weather expressions in Basque: first, based on Eriksen, Pål K., Seppo Kittilä & Leena Kolehmainen. 2010. The linguistics of weather: Cross linguistic patterns of meteorological expressions. Studies in Language 34(3). 565–601. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar 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 . 2015. Towards a theory of denominals in English and Romanian. Venezia: Università Ca’ Foscari PhD dissertation. and Levin, Beth & Bonnie Krejci. 2019. Talking about the weather: Two construals of precipitation events in English. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 4(1): 581. 1–29. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; and (b) that the empty pro subject of Basque transitive weather constructions is closer to a quasi-argument (Chomsky, Noam. 1981. Lectures on Government and Binding. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Levin, Beth & Bonnie Krejci. 2019. Talking about the weather: Two construals of precipitation events in English. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 4(1): 581. 1–29. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) 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
  • 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
References (49)
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Sources of examples
Corpus of Contemporary Basque: [URL] (last access 26 November 2021)
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Cited by one other publication

Dong, Sicong & Hongdi Ding
2025. A typological study of rainfall expressions in Sino-Tibetan languages. Studies in Language DOI logo

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