"a", "-ak" eta "-(r)ik" euskal hizkeretan zehar

Resumen

The aim of this paper is to make an as thorough as possible a description of both the Basque so-called definite article and the partitive particle -rik across its various dialects. The reason why I concentrate on these two elements is because they are related to each other; the partitive -(r)ik is taken to be the morpheme that is used in polarity contexts instead of the existential interpretation of the definite article -a(k). The paper does not aim at giving neither a syntactic nor a semantic analysis of these two morphemes, and it should only be taken as an initial approximation to the topic. Thus, this paper (together with some other papers that have recently appeared, cf. Manterola (2008), Santazilia (2009), Etxeberria and Etxepare (2009), Etxeberria in prep., as well as some older ones, cf. Txillardegi 1977, Irigoien 1985 among many others) will hopefully be the spearhead to the analysis of the functional structure of the Basque noun phrase.