With or without the definite article : On the syntax of anaphoric possessor strategies in Hungarian

Rákosi, György (2020) With or without the definite article : On the syntax of anaphoric possessor strategies in Hungarian. In: Approaches to Hungarian : Papers from the 2017 Budapest Conference. Approaches to Hungarian (16). John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam, pp. 116-136. ISBN 9789027204905 (print); 9789027261601 (online)

Preview

Text rakosi_18_With-or-without.pdf Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

That noun phrases may constitute a binding domain is a key component among the parallelisms between the syntax of noun phrases and clauses. Reuland (2007, 2011) and Despić (2011, 2015) have shown recently that the definite article plays a crucial role in delimiting this domain, since dedicated possessive reflexive anaphors are only possible in languages that lack a prenominal definite article. Hungarian has several anaphoric possessor strategies, which vary in whether they require, allow, or prohibit the use of the definite article in the possessive noun phrase. This paper gives an overview of the grammar of these strategies, and presents a discussion of the results of a questionnaire survey that was conducted to better understand the delicate distribution of the definite article in these constructions. The importance of these Hungarian data lies in showing that Reuland’s conjecture describes an important factor not only in cross-linguistic, but also in language internal variation in definite article use in possessive DP’s.

Actions (login required)

Edit Item