Igealakra

Igealakra is a term used in Basque linguistics to denote the finite forms of the verb — the conjugated shapes that carry information about the subject and about tense, mood, and aspect. In Basque, verbs are highly inflected, and the igealakrak are formed by attaching suffixes to a verb stem that mark person (first, second, third) and number (singular, plural) as well as temporal and modal categories. These finite forms determine who performs the action and when it occurs, and they can interact with auxiliary verbs to express complex tenses or voices.

Finite verb forms are contrasted with non-finite verb forms, such as the infinitive and participles, which do not, by themselves, express full tense or agreement. Non-finite forms typically appear in periphrastic constructions or as modifying elements, but they do not serve as the main predicate of a sentence in the same way as a finite form.

The Basque verbal system is typically described as agglutinative, with a single finite form often encoding multiple grammatical categories through a chain of suffixes. This makes igealakra central to the syntactic structure of Basque sentences, providing the core information about subject, time, and mode.

In linguistic descriptions, igealakra is used to analyze sentence structure, agreement, and the interaction between the verb and auxiliary constructions. The term appears in grammars and scholarly works on Basque morphology, where it helps distinguish conjugated, finite verb forms from non-finite verbal forms.