A semantic solution to the problem of Hungarian object agreement

E Coppock - Natural Language Semantics, 2013 - Springer
Natural Language Semantics, 2013Springer
This paper offers a semantically-based solution to the problem of predicting whether a verb
will display the subjective conjugation or the objective conjugation in Hungarian. This
alternation correlates with the definiteness of the object, but definiteness is not a completely
reliable indicator of the subjective/objective alternation, nor is specificity. A prominent view is
that the subjective/objective alternation is conditioned by the syntactic category of the object,
but this view has also been shown to be untenable. This paper offers a semantic solution: If …
Abstract
This paper offers a semantically-based solution to the problem of predicting whether a verb will display the subjective conjugation or the objective conjugation in Hungarian. This alternation correlates with the definiteness of the object, but definiteness is not a completely reliable indicator of the subjective/objective alternation, nor is specificity. A prominent view is that the subjective/objective alternation is conditioned by the syntactic category of the object, but this view has also been shown to be untenable. This paper offers a semantic solution: If the referential argument of a phrase is lexically specified as familiar/new, then the phrase bears the feature [+DEF]/[−DEF], and this feature governs the conjugations. The notions of novelty and familiarity are made precise using a compositional version of DRT in the context of a suitably large fragment of Hungarian, including local and non-local personal pronouns, demonstratives, definite and indefinite articles, quantifiers, wh-words, numerals, and possessives.
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