Pluralizers through time in the Basque dialect of Labourd

Abstract This article discusses the innovations that have arisen during the last several centuries in three pluralizing morphemes in the Basque dialect of Labourd (continental Basque Country). First, I will present the characteristics of Basque auxiliary and synthetic verbs so that we may better understand the three developments that I will then address and analyze: 1) a pluralizer used with transitive verbs that has moved to present tense intransitive verbs by analogy with its occurrence in past tense forms, driven by phonetic similarity; 2) a pluralizer that shows a complex development in its grammar, time and geography, and that we find in the continental Basque Country, but also in the peninsular Basque Country; and 3) a pluralizer that arose in verbs with dative and that came to be used in the transitive verb without dative jakin ‘to know’ only in Labourd.