El verbo auxiliar trivalente de los dialectos navarro y central [The trivalent auxiliary verb in the Navarrese and central dialects]

Abstract

In the present article, we have determined and demonstrated that the tricasual Verbal Morphological Structure (NDE) with /i/ belongs to the verb edin (to get), use of which as a trivalent auxiliary verb began in the Southern Navarrese dialect, and more specifically in the Pamplona area, from whence it spread to the rest of the territory in which it is now used via the main routes of communication, along the corridor which joins Pamplona with Irun through the Valley of Bidasoa. The old root -di- still appears in some dialectal variants of the past. The intervocalic /d/ was lost in the present and the resulting diphthong [ai] was reduced to /i/. In turn, the intransitive bicasual VMS(ND) of the auxiliary verb edin itself, which presents the diphthong [ai] in an equally regular manner, having substituted the intransitive bicasual VMS(ND) of izan, comes from the 3rd person ergative inflections of this tricasual VMS(NDE) of edin. Later, the original 3rd person prefix d- was replaced by the new prefix z- in all the dialects except in Uharte Arakil, where d- has been preserved. The diphthong [ai] was reduced to /i/ by the PC = ai > i in the tricasual VMS(NDE) of edin and, at a later stage, in Oiartzun’s new intransitive bicasual VMS(ND, edin), as well. The old diphthong [ai] has, however, been preserved in the tricasual VMS(NDE) in some localities.