Information-Structurally (Un)Ambiguous Nominal Constructions in Hungarian

Abstract

We discuss Hungarian sentences in which a (possessor or non-possessor) dependent of a noun head takes either noun-phrase-internal or external scope. We also investigate cases in which (i) the dependent in question is extracted from its matrix nominal expression (at least virtually) and (ii) several scope taking dependents can be found within a nominal expression. Particular attention is paid to scope taking dependents of (complex-event denoting) deverbal nominal constructions. In order to capture the phenomenon of internal-scope taking within nominal expressions, we propose a general syntactic representation in which the essentially morphology-based accounts are integrated with cartographic Split-DP / clausal-DP approaches (e.g. Giusti 1996, Grohmann 2003) via inserting operator layers in the new noun phrase structure. Certain language-specific intricacies are attributed to a post-Transfer process in PF in Sigurðsson’s (2009) spirit, and certain extraction phenomena are accounted for by means of remnant movement.