Hualde, J.I. (fortcoming) "Basque Accentuation". To appear in H. van der Hulst (ed.) Word Prosodic Systems in the Languages of Europe. Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin & New York.

Hualde, J.I. (fortcoming) "Basque Accentuation". To appear in H. van der Hulst (ed.) Word Prosodic Systems in the Languages of Europe. Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin & New York

There is a fundamental distinction between unaccented and accented words. Unaccented words, which constitute the largest part of the lexicon, receive final prominence when they occur at the end of certain phrasal domain (including when they occur in isolation); otherwise, they do not present accentual prominence on any syllable. Accented words bear accentual prominence on some nonfinal syllable in all contexts. Accented words present a rise in pitch culminating on the accented syllable, which is followed by a sharp drop on the following syllable (a H*L contour; where the asterisk indicates that the first tone links to the accented syllable). In accented polymoremic words, the accent may be a lexical property of the root or of an affix. In Lekeitio Basque all accented morphemes, be they roots, derivational suffixes, or inflectional suffixes, assign accentual prominence to the penultimate syllable of the word. All accented words appear with penultimate accent, regardless of the position of the accented morpheme within the word and the number of accented morphemes the word contains.. (Hualde forthcoming)

sagara apple abs.

sagárak apples abs.

sagarétik apple abl.

sagaretátik apples abl.