Kenesei István: Argument Structure in Hungary (Budapest, 2001)

Márta Maleczki: Indefinite arguments in Hungarian

MÁRTA MALECZKl allowed exclusively. Non-specific and specific interpretations are equally available if the indefinite NP is the initiator argument of the L-construction; when it is interpreted as the initiator, it gets a non-specific reading, but when it becomes the topic of the sentence (which is an open possibility for initiators, since only the L-argument position has to be filled obligatorily in the L-construction), it receives a specific interpretation. The third question concerns bare common nouns: (22) What kind of mechanism controls the possible occurrences of bare common nouns, and how? The answer heavily relies on the characteristic semantic feature of bare nouns, which is that they are to be interpreted as properties. Being they properties, they are licit only in a position that is interpreted as a property itself; and this position is that of the L-argument in the L-construction. So bare common nouns only occur in the L-structure, on the own terms of that construction. References Alberti, Gábor. 1998. “Restrictions on the degree of referentiality of arguments in Hungarian sentences”. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 44. 341-362. Ábel, Péter, & Márta Maleczki. 1994. “Specificity”. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 42. 209-226. Bach, Emmon. 1981. “On Time, Tense, and Aspect: An Essay in English Metaphysics”. Radical Pragmatics. Ed. by Peter Cole, 63-81. New York: Academic Press. Barwise, Jon, & Robin Cooper. 1981. “Generalized Quantifiers and Natural Language”. Linguistics and Philosophy 4. 170-229. Dowty, David R. 1979. Word Meaning and Montague Grammar. Dordrecht: Reidel. Eny, Miirvet. 1991. “The semantics of specificity”. Linguistic Inquiry 22. 1-25. E. Kiss, Katalin. 1995. “Definiteness effect revisited”. Approaches to Hungarian 5. Ed. by István Kenesei, 63-88. Szeged: József Attila University. Glasbey, Sheila. 1995. A Situation-Theoretic Interpretation of Bare Plurals. Manuscript, University of Edinburgh. Groenendijk, Jeroen, & Martin Stokhof. 1980. “A pragmatic analysis of specificity”. Ambiguities in Intensional Contexts. Ed. by Frank Heny, 153—190. Dordrecht: Reidel. Hoop, Helen de. 1995. “On the characterization of the weak/strong distinction”. Quantification in Natural Languages. Ed. by Emon Bach, Eloise Jelinek, Angelika Kratzer & Barbara H. Partee, 421-450. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Kálmán, László. 1995. “Definiteness effect verbs in Hungarian”. Approaches to Hungarian 5. Ed. by István Kenesei, 221-242. Szeged: József Attila University. Keenan, Edward L. 1987. “A semantic definition of ‘indefinite NP’”. The Representation of (In)definiteness. Ed. by Erik J. Reuland & Alice G. B. ter Meulen. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press. Ladusaw, William A. 1994. “Thetic and categorical, stage and individual, weak and strong”. Proceedings from Semantics and Linguistic Theory IV. Ed. by Mandy Harvey & Lynn Santelmann, 220-229. Ithaca: Cornell University. Lambrecht, Knud. 1994. Information Structure and Sentence Form. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 198

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