Systematiker wrote:A question for those who know more than I: the nor-nori-nork explanations are all just trying to get at absolutive, dative, and ergative cases, right? Or did I miss something else important?
(...added your log, anyone else who wants me to add their log just let me know!)
Nor is the object of transitive verbs, nori is the indirect object, and nork is the subject (ergative). Nor is the nor case (ie without a special ending), nork is the nork case (ergative, -k ending), and nori is the nori case (dative, generally some form of an -i ending). So there are four types of verbs:
NOR (etorri naiz), NOR-NORI (gustatzen zait), NOR-NORK (maite zaitut), and NOR-NORI-NORK (esan dizut)
NOR verbs are just your standard intransitive verbs (go, come, etc.). It can also be used to make a verb passive (esan du = he/she/it said, esan da = it was said).
NOR-NORI verbs are verbs like... well, it's easier to compare to Spanish.
- Me gusta = gustatzen zait. Here, zai shows us a singular subject and the -t shows us the dative object (to me).
- Te parecen = iruditzen zaizkizu. zaizki- shows us that the subject is plural (-zki- often shows up to mark third person plural) and -zu tells us the indirect object: to you.
They are verbs with no direct object, only a subject and dative/indirect object.
NOR-NORK are your standard transitive verbs. They have a direct object (NOR) and a subject (NORK). The verb tells you who the recipient of the action is in addition to who is doing the action. Take for example:
Ikusi nauzu - you saw me. nau- refers to NI, and -zu refers to ZUK.
Esan ditut - I said (them). ditu- refers to HAIEK (the nor form, ie. direct object) and -t refers to NIK.
And lastly...
NOR-NORI-NORK is a verb with a subject, direct object, and indirect object. Note that the direct object can only be third person singular or plural, so there's no telling your slaves eg. "I sold you to her", at least not using NOR-NORI-NORK!
Eman dizki-zu-t - I gave them to you.
Esan di-da-te - They told (it to) me.
Learning all these forms (and the few synthetic verbs) will likely constitute the bulk of your Basque learning
Fortunately they are
very regular and you will start to see the patterns between/within them.
I use
this chart to help me out when typing online:
EDIT:
Saim wrote:Basques just tend to use interrogative pronouns to talk about cases rather than their names.
And what Saim was saying is that in Basque they generally say NOR (who) to refer to the absolutive, NON (where) to refer to the enessive, NOREN (whose) to refer to the genitive, NORA (to where) to refer to the allative, and so on. It's generally easier to follow since nor also takes those case endings: nor, non, nongo, nondik, noren, nora, nori, norekin, norentzat, etc. and then there's a couple formed from zer (what) like zerez, zertara/zertarako, ...