Chapter 7. A case of disagreement

Abstract

The chapter discusses the so-called Hungarian reduplicating particle verb construction that has generated some interest in the pertinent generative literature on Hungarian. This literature is divided over whether reduplicating particles can bear plural morphology in the presence of a third person plural oblique associate or not: some accept and some reject the resulting agreeing reduplicating particle verb construction, thus creating a par excellence context of data inconsistency. The chapter offers a detailed and critical overview of the literature, and presents some novel arguments in an effort to find a paraconsistent solution to this problem within the framework of the p-model of Kertész and Rákosi (2012). This solution rests and on the claim that the plural and the non-plural reduplicating particle verb constructions are radically different in their grammar, since the particle only acts as a pronominal in the case of the former construction type. The pronominal use of the particle is a marked option, rendering the agreeing reduplicating particle verb construction a marked phenomenon of Hungarian grammar.

The position of case markers relative to possessive agreement

“…In this case, however, a reduplication-like structure arises: the case marker appears both on the Ground and in a second position that is separated from the Ground (É. Kiss 2002;Surányi 2009b;Rákosi 2014). Just like with separated caselike Ps, separated case markers must bear agreement and may show either singular or plural agreement with plural nouns.…”

Dissecting Adpositional Particle Constructions: Remarks from Ellipsis

“…Kiss (1998) treat the preverb in the complex strategy uninflected, while the one in the simplex simplex strategy inflected and complemented by a pronoun. This insight has been further supported by Rákosi (2014), who claims that the inflected particle in the complex strategy cannot contain a full pronoun (unlike the one in the simplex strategy) as it does not show pronominal behavior according to binding theory. Note that (7) does not show a binding theory violation, which is strange if the particle contains a pronoun (as indicated here).…”

“…Approaches in which the particle in the complex strategy, unlike the one in the simplex strategy, is not a full pronoun, such as Ackermann and Webelhuth (1993), É. Kiss (1998), and in a similar vain, Rákosi and Laczkó (2011), Rákosi (2014) have no problem explaining this mismatch and in fact predict the LIC violation to rear its head in the above contexts: rá and rájuk in these analyses differ from each other in that the former has no complement, while the latter does. In line with this, rá is not interpreted as a referential pronoun, while rájuk is, leading to a difference in semantic interpretation.…”

“…Constructions with inflected reduplicating particles constitute a relatively well-researched area of Hungarian syntax, having been studied in (at least) Ackerman and Webelhuth (1993), É. Kiss (1998Kiss ( , 2002, Surányi (2009a,b), Rákosi and Laczkó (2011), Laczkó and Rákosi (2013), Rákosi (2014) and Hegedűs (2016).…”