Gotzon Aurrekoetxea
The studies on geolinguistic variation have been fruitful in the Basque language since the beginning of the dialectal literature (Alvarez & Aurrekoetxea 1987). These studies have contributed to our knowledge of the dialectal variation of Basque, but the lack of homogeneous data recorded by similar methodologies has been a handicap to the development of more advanced studies. Now that the first five volumes of the Linguistic Atlas of the Basque Language (henceforth EHHA) have been published, researchers have a great amount of data (Euskaltzaindia 2010-2013), never before even thought of, and have the possibility to use more sophisticated procedures to analyse the variation of the Basque language from a geolinguistic point of view.
In this contribution, we will use data taken from the fifth volume of the EHHA, which is devoted to noun morphology; we will take only some data from this volume, those regarding declination. First, these data will be analysed linguistically, and instead of using the phonetic representation, we will use the phonological or underlying representation. In order to do this, we will analyse the inventory of the morphological suffixes used in declension cases and the phonological rules which appear in these cases (mainly assimilation, dissimilation, insertion and deletion), using the classical view of generative phonology.
As far as the cartography of the data is concerned, we will use the recently created Diatech tool, instead of other dialectometrical tools, because of the multiple responses (MR) which that data show. In effect, the Diatech tool provides a more accurate processing of the MR (Aurrekoetxea et al. 2013) than other tools. Apart from the conceptual maps, synthetic maps will also be shown; these maps will show different geographical organisations of the suffixes and phonological rules.
Aurrekoetxea, G.; Karmele Fernandez-Aguirre; Jesus Rubio; Borja Ruiz; Jon Sanchez, 2013, 'DiaTech': A new tool for dialectology, Literary and Linguistic Computing; doi: 10.1093/llc/fqs049
Euskaltzaindia, 2010-2013, Euskararen Herri Hizkeren Atlasa I-V [Linguistic Atlas of the Basque Language I-V], Bilbao: Euskaltzaindia. All in www.euskaltzaindia.net]
Alvarez Enparantza, J. L. ``Txillardegi'' & Aurrekoetxea, G. 1987, Euskal dialektologiaren hastapenak, Bilbao: UEU, [www.inguma.org].