this paper is to describe the internal syntax of Hungarian noun phrases in terms of their immediate constituent structure. The external syntax of NPs, i.e. their distribution in larger phrases and sentences will be mentioned only in passing { for a more detailed discussion, see Kenesei (1985). Section 1 deals with the lower bar-levels, and Section 2 describes the possessive constructions: the results are summarized as context-free rule schemata in Section 3

Kornai, András

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Approaches to Hungarian 1 (1985): 79–92 79The internal structure of Noun PhrasesAndra´s KornaiInstitute of Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences0 IntroductionThe aim of this paper is to describe the internal syntax of Hungarian noun phrasesin terms of their immediate constituent structure. The external syntax of NPs,i.e. their distribution in larger phrases and sentences will be mentioned only inpassing – for a more detailed discussion, see Kenesei (1985). Section 1 deals withthe lower bar-levels, and Section 2 describes the possessive constructions: the resultsare summarized as context-free rule schemata in Section 3.1 The easy parts of the NPA noun preceded by an adjective is, perhaps, the most simple combination of wordsthat can reasonably be called an NP in Hungarian. (Nouns followed by modifiersare discussed in Laczko´ (1985)). Yet a simple phrase-structure rule, such as(1) NP → A Nis clearly insufficient for the description of this trivial fact. For instance, the caseof the nouns that can be substituted for such NPs must be the same as the case ofthe head nounPiroska me´g nem evett paprika´s gulya´stPiroschka yet not eat-PAST spicy goulash-ACC‘Piroschka has not yet eaten spicy goulash’*Piroska me´g nem evett paprika´s gulya´sPiroschka yet not eat-PAST spicy goulash-NOMand the above rule makes no provision for this. In order to capture the regularitiesof constituent structure in a phrase-structure formalism, it is thus necessary toemploy rules containing complex symbols of some sort. The following discussion isintended primarily to make the use of such symbols clear. Most rules will be onlysketched first, and their rigorous statement is deferred to Section 3.Since other constituents (numerals, quantifiers, etc.) can be added to A+Nconstructions, they are not maximal projections, so the use of “NP” on the left-hand side of (1) is somewhat misleading. The usual solution to this problem is theintroduction of bar-levels (cf. e.g. Harris (1951, ch 16), Jackendoff (1977, ch 3)).In the Jackendovian scheme, we must take it into account that the adjective is80 Andra´s Kornaioptional, and assign the construction to the first bar level. This would give us arule like1(1A) N1 → (A) NBut if we follow the Harrisian principles of level-assignment, then the first thing wenote is that the substitution of A+N for N can be repeated as many times as wewish. Indeed, constructions with stacked adjectives likekicsi puha sa´rga francia pa´rna‘little soft yellow french pillow’are quite common, and this means we should adopt the rule(1B) N → (A) Nrather than rule (1A). Since Hungarian NPs can contain several obligatoryconstituents, it would be impossible to use only rules permitted by the Uniform3-Level Hypothesis of Jackendoff (1977), and in what follows, non-repeatablesubstitutions (and only these) will correspond to raised bar-level. However, I willuse a rule like(1C) N1 → (AP) Nto describe the position of the adjectival noun-modifiers: readers bothered by thisinconsistency should subtract one from every bar level (other than zero) throughoutthe paper.The only major departure from the Harrisian mode of immediate constituentanalysis is the adoption of words, rather than morphemes, as basic syntacticunits. As a consequence, the category symbols will have to be annotated for theparadigmatic form of the word in question. This will be achieved by a liberal useof morphosyntactic features, such as αCASE (where α ranges over NOM, ... ,FOR), the person-number features ±ME, ±YOU, ±PL, etc. These features areall inflectional (in the sense of Anderson 1982) – for their morphological realizationsee Ka´lma´n (1985). With the aid of complex symbols made up from the basiccategory symbol (such as N, V, Num, etc.), a number indicating bar-level, and themorphosyntactic features (which will be always enclosed in angled brackets), (1C)can be replaced by the rule schema (1D). (For ANP, see Section 2.)(1D) N< 1 αCASE βPL γPOS δANP>→A <n -CASE -PL -POS -ANP> N< 0 αCASE βPL γPOS δANP>Thus, every morphosyntactic feature behaves here as a head feature (in the sense ofGPSG, see. e.g. Gazdar 1982); and the adjective modifying the head noun does notagree with it in number, case, or any other feature. For the adjunction of numerals,a similar rule can be stated:(2) N< 2 αCASE -PL βPOS γANP>→Num<n -CASE -PL -POS -ANP> N< 1 αCASE -PL βPOS γANP>1 The final version of the rules is lettered F, G, ...The internal structure of Noun Phrases 81The scope of this paper does not permit a detailed discussion of the numeralphrase or of the adjectival phrase. Nevertheless, it should be mentioned here thatNum< 1 > can contain a measure term:ha´rom kilo´ rothadt almathree kilogram rotten appleand that numerals (or NumPs) and adjectives (or APs) cannot be interchanged:*rothadt ha´rom kilo´ alma*A< k > Num< k > NRule (2) makes it clear that NPs containing a numeral must be singular:*ha´rom alma´k*Num N<+PL>so in order to provide for an unbroken projection line for plural NPs, we might addthe rules(2A) N< 2 αCASE βPL γPOS δANP>→ N< 1 αCASE βPL γPOS δANP>(2B) N< 1 αCASE βPL γPOS δANP>→ N< 0 αCASE βPL γPOS δANP>The definite article a/az attaches proclitically to the N< 2 >: if there is a numeral(and an adjective), it has to precede the numeral,a ha´rom rothadt almathe three rotten apple*ha´rom a rothadt alma*Num Art N< 1 >and if there is an adjective, but no numeral, the article has to precede the adjective:*rothadt az alma*A Art N (qua NP)Since only one article can appear in any N< 2 >, all the above facts can beconveniently summarized in the rule(3) N< 3 >→ Art N< 2 >The verb in Hungarian has two forms for every permissible tense/mood/aspect/person/number combination (see Ka´lma´n (1985)). In intransitiveconstructions, the so-called ‘subjective’ forms are selected, and the formstraditionally called ‘objective’ appear only in transitive constructions with definiteobjects.2 In other words, the verb agrees with the object (more precisely, with2 This picture is somewhat complicated by the suffix -lak/-lek which appears only in thefirst person singular paradigm. Second person objects always select this suffix, no matterwhether they are definite (e.g. mindnya´jatok ‘you all’) or indefinite (e.g. bennetek ‘you(pl)’) with -ME or +PL subjects.82 Andra´s Kornaithe NP having accusative marking) with respect to definiteness: this makes itparticularly easy to test the definiteness of NPs in Hungarian. The definite article,of course, will make the resulting construction definite: this will be captured byadding the feature +D to the left-hand side of (3). This feature is inherent onproper nouns:La´tom Attila´t *La´tok Attila´tsee+D Attila-ACC *V<-D> N<+D ACC>‘I see Attila’In colloquial Hungarian, the definite article can also be added,La´tom az Attila´tsee+D the Attila-ACCso there is an additional rule(3A) N< 3 +D>→ Art N<+D>The cooccurrence of numerals and adjectives with proper nouns is largely restrictedto metaphorical usage:a magyar Beethoventhe Hungarian B.Certain proper nouns cannot appear with definite article:*a Lisszabon *az Afrika(There is a tendency in normative grammars to put every personal name in thisclass.) Adjectival constructions show this to be a purely local phenomenon:a gyo¨nyo¨ru˝ Lisszabon az e´hezo˝ Afrika‘the beautiful Lisbon’ ‘the hunger-stricken Africa3’2 Possessive constructionsThere are three kinds of possessive constructions in Hungarian, two of themsyntactic, and one morphological. The latter is purely anaphoric: the presence ofthe suffix -e´ on a head noun refers to something in the possession of the head:O¨do¨ne´Ed’s ...This anaphora possessiva (ANP) suffix is not a genitival ending. Firstly, the ordinarygenitive construction is absent from Hungarian:*O¨do¨ne´ ko¨nyv *O¨do¨ne´ a ko¨nyv*N<+ANP> N *N<+ANP> Art N (qua NP)and secondly, case endings arein complementary distribution, while -e´ can cooccur3 There is also a “The Hague” class of proper names, the items of which must appearwith the definite article.The internal structure of Noun Phrases 83with every case.*O¨do¨nneket O¨do¨ne´t*N-DAT-ACC ‘Ed-ANP-ACC’With the aid of slash categories (in the original sense of GPSG, cf. Gazdar 1982),possessive anaphoric constructions can be related to NPs ‘with an N missing’.In order to familiarize the reader with this kind of complex symbol, let us firstinvestigate constructions likea ha´rom sa´rga´t nyolccal aztthe three yellow-ACC eight-INS the-ACCSuch expressions are best translated to English with anaphoric one: ‘the threeyellow ones’, ‘eight ones’, ‘the one’. These expression occur, by and large, in thesame sort of coordination reduction contexts as in English:E´n a fekete kocsival megyek, o˝ pedig a pirossalI the black car-INS go-PRES he but the red-ACC‘I’ll go in the black car and he in the red one’(For more detailed discussion, see Kerkovits (1985)) There are, then, NPs with thehead missing: the rules(4A) N< 1 > /N → (AP) N/N(4B) N< 2 > /N → (NumP) N/N(4C) N< 3 > /N → Art N/Nare parallel to the rules in (1), (2), and (3). N/N is a phonetically null noun withno phonological effect whatsoever: its case, number, etc. features are spelled out onthe preceding element. With the aid of this notation,(5) N<+ANP>=N/N<POS>The expression on the left-hand side of the equation has the same semantic contentas the expression on the right-hand side. +POS is the same possessive suffix thatappears in syntactic possessive constructions likeO¨do¨n ko¨nyve O¨do¨nnek a ko¨nyveEd book-POS Ed-DAT the book-POSLet us first take the simpler of these two, where the possessor is in the nominativeform. Since the possessed noun can be modified by numerals and/or adjectives, butcannot take the definite article,O¨do¨n ke´t e´rdekes ko¨nyve *O¨do¨n a ko¨nyveEd two interesting book-POS *N Art N<POS>‘Ed’s two interesting books’the head of the construction is an N< 2 >. The substitution cannot be iterated:*Ja´nos Pe´ter ko¨nyve(je)*N N N<POS> (<POS>)so the whole construction is on a higher bar-level. This gives us the rule84 Andra´s Kornai(6) N< 3 >→ N< 3 -POS> N< 2 +POS>The three bars of the first NP on the right-hand side (i.e. the possessor) can bemotivated as follows. First, the article can appear in the leftmost position of these:a fiu kutya´jathe boy dog-POS‘the boy’s dog’and second, this article forms a constituent with the following N, as can be seenfrom the non-existence of such constructions as*a Lisszabon fo˝utca´ja*Art Lisbon main-street-POS(cf Section 1. above), and, further, from a comparison of the obviative article a/azwith the proximate article e. In constructions likee fiu kutya´jathis boy dog-POSe has narrow scope, and if we suppose that the article belongs to the wholeconstruction, the nearness of the boy and the possible remoteness of the dog remainsunexplained.The possessive construction is definite even if the head noun is indefinite, and itis -POS in spite of the fact that the head noun appears in +POS form. The formerobservation means that possessive NPs can only be substituted by definite nounsin object position, and the latter means that they can be substituted by nouns thatdo not have possessive suffixation:La´tom Pe´ter kalapja´t *La´tom kalapotsee-1st-sg-D Peter hat-POS-ACC *N<+D> N<-D>‘I see Peter’s hat’Piroska gulya´sa paprika´s * (a) gulya´sa paprika´sPiroschka goulash-POS spicy (is) * (Art) N<+POS> N‘Piroschka’s goulash is spicy’Case, ANP, and PL behave like head features here. This is also true of the otherpossessive construction, which involves dative marking on the possessor, and musthave an N< 3 > in the position of the possessed element:*O¨do¨nnek ko¨nyve*N<+DAT> N<+POS>Since the substitution is, again, nonrepeatable,*a fiunak a la´nynak a ko¨nyve*N< 3 +DAT> N< 3 +DAT> N< 3 +POS>the dative possessive construction must be assigned a higher bar-level:(7) N< 4 >→ N< 3 +DAT> N< 3 +POS>The possessor is at least N< 3 >, as can be seen from the constructionsThe internal structure of Noun Phrases 85e fiunak a ko¨nyve *a Lisszabonnak a fo˝utca´jathe boy-DAT the book-POS *Art N<-ART> Art N<+POS>(near) (near) (far)where -ART is used simply as a diacritic distinguishing those nouns that do nottake the article as sister constituent. The status of iterated possessive constructionssuch as% a fiunak a bara´tja´nak a ko¨nyvethe boy-DAT the friend-POS-DAT the book-POS‘the book of the friend of the boy’% a fiu bara´tja ko¨nyvethe boy friend-POS book-POS‘the book of the friend of the boy’is not quite clear: for those speakers, who accept them, we might take the possessorto be N< 4 >. The general acceptance of iterated possessives starting with aninterrogative pronounkinek a bara´tja´nak a ko¨nyvewho-DAT the friend-POS-DAT the book-POS‘whose friend’s book’seems to support this conclusion. Either way, the present assignment of bar-levelsmakes it possible to generate iterated constructions likea fiu bara´tja´nak a ko¨nyvethe boy friend-POS-DAT the book-POS‘the boy’s friend’s book’where the dative possessor is a nominative possessive construction, while the reverseconstruction, where the nominative possessor is a dative possessive construction, isnot permitted:*a fiunak a bara´tja ko¨nyve*Art N<DAT> Art N<POS> N<POS>This is in accordance with the (in these cases, unequivocal) judgments of nativespeakers.It should be noted here that quantifiers, with the sole exception of minden‘every’, have roughly the same distribution as numerals. —it Minden, however,is in complementary distribution with the definite article*a minden ko¨nyv *minden a ko¨nyv (qua NP)and, indeed, can be taken as an indefinite article44 Traditional grammars usually call the numeral egy ‘one’ the indefinite article, althoughits distribution is almost identical to that of other numerals. Its peculiarities stem fromthe fact that it has positional variants after articles: *az egy is replaced by az egyik ‘theone’ or by az egyetlen ‘the only’ and *minden egy is replaced by minden egyes ‘everysingle’.86 Andra´s KornaiLa´tok minden ko¨nyvet *La´tom minden ko¨nyvetsee-1st-Sg-D every book-ACC *V<+D> every N<ACC>‘I see every book’If the possessor is a personal pronoun, only the nominative construction can beused:az e´n ko¨nyvem *nekem a ko¨nyvem5the I book-POS *I-DAT Art N<+POS>‘my book’The situation here is parallel to that in subject-predicate constructions. Thepossessive affix agrees with the possessor in person and number, and the pronouncan be dropped:a te ko¨nyved a ko¨nyvedthe Pro2ndSg book-POS-2nd-Sg the book-POS-2nd-Sg‘your book’ ‘your book’The article, however, has to be retained in most of the cases:*o˝ ko¨nyve *ko¨nyve*Pro N<+POS> *N<+POS>This fact is captured by subsuming these pronouns under Art< 1 +D> as optionalcomplements:(8A) N< 3 +D -POS>→ Art< 1 +D> N< 2 +POS>(8B) Art< 1 +D>→ Art< +D> (Pro)Finally, the parallel between N<+ANP> and N N/N<+POS> can be extended topronouns. The possessive suffixes enye´m, tie´d, ... ‘mine, yours, ...’ can be treatedlike Pr<+ANP>: this is clear from possessive sentences likea ko¨nyv O¨do¨ne´ volt a ko¨nyv az enye´m voltthe book Ed-POS was the book the mine was‘the book was Ed’s’ ‘the book was mine’Now, if we substitute Pro N/N<POS> for Pro<+ANP> we geta ko¨nyv az e´n N/N-mthe book the I N/N<+POS>‘the book is my (book)’5 The dative can be used if the possessor and the possessed item are not in the sameconstruction:Nekem a ko¨nyveim sikeresekI-DAT the book-PL-POS successful-PL‘My BOOKS are successful’and in fact it must be used if the possessor is not adjacent to the possessed item:Nekem sikeresek a ko¨nyveimI-DAT successful-PL the book-PL-POS‘My books are successful’The internal structure of Noun Phrases 873 The rules(1F) N< 1 αPOS βPL γANP δCAS D>→(A< n -POS -PL -ANP -CAS>) N< 0 αPOS βPL γANP δCAS D>(1G) N< 1 αPOS βPL γANP δCAS D>/N →(A< n -POS -PL -ANP -CAS>) N< 0 αPOS βPL γANP δCAS D>/N(2F) N< 2 αPOS -PL βANP γCAS δD>→(Num< n -POS -PL -ANP -CAS>) N< 1 αPOS -PL βANP γCAS δD>(2G) N< 2 αPOS +PL βANP γCAS δD>→ N< 1 αPOS +PL βANP γCAS δD>(2H) N< 2 αPOS -PL βANP γCAS δD>/N →(Num< n -POS -PL -ANP -CAS>) N< 1 αPOS -PL βANP γCAS δD>/N(2I) N< 2 αPOS +PL βANP γCAS δD>/N →N< 1 αPOS +PL βANP γCAS δD>/N(3F) N< 3 αPOS βPL γANP δCAS D>→Art< D> N< 2 αPOS βPL γANP δCAS ±D>(3G) N< 3 αPOS βPL γANP δCAS +D>→N< 0 αPOS βPL γANP δCAS +D>(3H) N< 3 αPOS βPL γANP δCAS D>/N →Art< D> N< 2 αPOS βPL γANP δCAS ±D>/N(5F) N< 3 αPOS βPL ANP< γ PL> δCAS D>=N< 3 αPOS βPL -ANP -CAS ±D> ++ N< 2 +POS γPL -ANP δCAS D>/N(6F) N<3 -POS αPL βANP γCAS +D>→N<3 ±POS ±PL -ANP -CAS ±D> N<2 +POS αPL βANP γCAS ±D>(7F) N<4 -POS αPL βANP γCAS +D>→N<3%4 ±POS ±PL ±ANP +DAT ±D> N<3 +POS αPL βANP γCAS +D>(8F) N<3 -POS αPL βANP γCAS +D>→Art<1 +D δME YOU ζPL>N<2 POS< δME YOU ζPL> αPL βANP γCAS ±D>(8G) N<3 -POS αPL βANP γCAS +D>→Art<0 ±D>N<2 POS< ±ME ±YOU ±PL> αPL βANP γCAS ±D>(8H) Art<1 +D αME βYOU γPL>→Art<+D> Pro< αME βYOU γPL>ReferencesAnderson, S. R. 1982: Where is morphology? Linguistic Inquiry 13, 571-612Gazdar, G. 1982: Phrase structure grammar. In: Jacobson-Pullum (eds): TheNature of Syntactic Representation. Reidel, DordrechtHarris, Z. 1951: Methods in Structural Linguistics. University of Chicago PressJackendoff, R. 1977: X-bar Syntax. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.Ka´lma´n, L. 1985: Inflectional Morphology, in this volumeKenesei, I. 1985: Subordinate Clauses, in this volumeKerkovits, A. 1985: Ellipsis, in this volumeLaczko´, T. 1985: Deverbal nouns and their complements, in this volume

THE INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF NOUN PHRASES

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THE INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF NOUN PHRASES

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