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The feature geometry of generic inclusive null DPs in Hungarian

  • Gréte Dalmi
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Advances in the Syntax of DPs
This chapter is in the book Advances in the Syntax of DPs

Abstract

This paper claims that Hungarian allows generic inclusive subjects to be null only if they have a generic inclusive antecedent in an adjacent clause. This distinguishes Hungarian from all the other types of Null Subject Languages (NSLs) identified by Roberts & Holmberg (2010). The generic inclusive lexical az ember GEN ‘the man’ is a first person-oriented genericity-inducing lexical item that always receives widest scope interpretation, just like English one. The generic inclusive null subject, pro GEN, on the other hand, is an anaphor that requires a generic inclusive antecedent, as does English oneself (Moltmann 2006, 2010, 2012). A similar duality is observed with PRO, the silent counterpart of generic inclusive one in non-finite clauses.

Abstract

This paper claims that Hungarian allows generic inclusive subjects to be null only if they have a generic inclusive antecedent in an adjacent clause. This distinguishes Hungarian from all the other types of Null Subject Languages (NSLs) identified by Roberts & Holmberg (2010). The generic inclusive lexical az ember GEN ‘the man’ is a first person-oriented genericity-inducing lexical item that always receives widest scope interpretation, just like English one. The generic inclusive null subject, pro GEN, on the other hand, is an anaphor that requires a generic inclusive antecedent, as does English oneself (Moltmann 2006, 2010, 2012). A similar duality is observed with PRO, the silent counterpart of generic inclusive one in non-finite clauses.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. List of contributors ix
  4. List of abbreviations xi
  5. List of figures xiii
  6. Editors' note xv
  7. Preface xvii
  8. Introduction 1
  9. The overgeneration problem and the case of semipredicatives in Russian 13
  10. Polish equatives as symmetrical structures 61
  11. Syntactic (dis)agreement is not semantic agreement 95
  12. A Note on Oblique Case: Evidence from Serbian / Croatian 117
  13. The structure of null subject DPs and agreement in Polish impersonal constructions 129
  14. The feature geometry of generic inclusive null DPs in Hungarian 165
  15. Possessives within and beyond NP 193
  16. On pre-nominal classifying adjectives in Polish 221
  17. Determiners and Possessives in Old English and Polish 247
  18. Agreement and definiteness in Germanic DPs 267
  19. Transparent free relatives 295
  20. Index 319
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.217.07dal

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. List of contributors ix
  4. List of abbreviations xi
  5. List of figures xiii
  6. Editors' note xv
  7. Preface xvii
  8. Introduction 1
  9. The overgeneration problem and the case of semipredicatives in Russian 13
  10. Polish equatives as symmetrical structures 61
  11. Syntactic (dis)agreement is not semantic agreement 95
  12. A Note on Oblique Case: Evidence from Serbian / Croatian 117
  13. The structure of null subject DPs and agreement in Polish impersonal constructions 129
  14. The feature geometry of generic inclusive null DPs in Hungarian 165
  15. Possessives within and beyond NP 193
  16. On pre-nominal classifying adjectives in Polish 221
  17. Determiners and Possessives in Old English and Polish 247
  18. Agreement and definiteness in Germanic DPs 267
  19. Transparent free relatives 295
  20. Index 319
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