Hurbiltze bat euskal hitzordenaren tradizioari

Abstract

This paper considers the current standards of word order in the Basque prose (i.e., law of the inquired element and general verbal postponement) as artificial and apocryphal, in such measure as its opposition to the written tradition and to all known oral usages. The appearence of this laws in the general linguistic revolution of the late XIXth century is ascribed to Azkue, and only in his wake can these laws unchallengable success be explained.

After a superficial survey of some of its historical antecedents, and relegating them, as well as a posterior SOV language cataloguing, we endevour to recover, from the very Basque tradition and from some linguistic discoveries, three basic principles governing such a word order: 1. That of free word order; 2. The “Xà” phenomenon or “verb in the second place”; and, 3. That which would establish, according to some universalizing laws of communication, a word order of the type theme→rheme inside the sentence. Lastly, following these principles and recovering the always similar models from the written tradition and oral usage, a general advancement of the verbal placement in the word order of the current written prose is proposed as a means of removing some of its basic communicative problems.