Focus Phenomena in a Parallel LFG Grammar of Hungarian and English

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Pronominal Possessors and Syntactic Functions in the Hungarian Possessive Noun Phrase

In this paper we develop an LFG analysis of the binding relations of Hungarian anaphors when they occur within possessive DPs. The reflexive is subject to the Minimal Complete Nucleus Condition, and the reciprocal is subject to the Minimal Finite Domain Condition. When either the reflexive or the reciprocal pronoun occurs within a possessive DP, neither of them can be anaphorically bound from outside if this DP contains the definite article (Rákosi 2017, to appear). Our analysis has two crucial aspects. On the one hand, we introduce a new feature: “binding domain delimiter” associated with the lexical form of the definite article. We use this feature as a negative off-path constraint in modelling the relevant binding relations. On the other hand, following Laczkó (2004, 2009), we assume that within Hungarian possessive DPs there are two [–r] grammatical functions available to arguments of complex event nominals: POSS and SUBJ. Both can be overtly realized by either the nominative or the dative possessor constituent, and, in addition, SUBJ can also be PRO. Thus, we create a DP-internal antecedent for the anaphors in a principled manner, which, in turn, can be controlled from outside the DP

A való főnévi csoportokban való használatáról

The paper offers au outline of a new approach, within the framework of Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG), to való constituents in Hungarian noun phrases. After a short overview of the major types of previous accounts, which it claims to be rather vague or too informal or hardly tenable, and after a brief introduction to the aspects of LFG directly relevant to the analysis to be proposed, it argues that in the expression type in question való is the structural head, while the oblique phrase is the functional head of the constituent. This approach is fully compatible with the architecture of LFG. One of its most favourable aspects is that it ensures in a principled way that the predicate expressed by the deverbal noun head and its argument “embedded” in the való expression will “find each other”

On the -Ás suffix: Word formation in the syntax?

In this paper I discuss Kenesei’s (2005) syntactic derivational approach to -Ás complex event nominals in Hungarian, and I compare it with previous lexicalist analyses. I demonstrate that the facts that, according to Kenesei, call for a syntactic analysis (e.g., binding and control phenomena, anti-agreement, negation, and aspect) can be captured in an appropriately developed lexicalist framework with at least the same degree of efficiency, consistency and in a sufficiently principled manner. I outline the most important aspects of such an analysis in the framework of Lexical-Functional Grammar. I also point out that there are additional considerations which support a lexical treatment