On oblique arguments and adjuncts of Hungarian event nominals—a comprehensive LFG account

In this paper I offer a comprehensive analysis of the three ways of expressing oblique arguments and adjuncts of event nominals in Hungarian. In the first, and by far the most productive, type the arguments and adjuncts preceding the head have to be adjectivalized by means of either the adjectivizing suffix -i (but it can only attach to the majority of postpositions) or való, one of the present participial counterparts of the copula van 'be'. I assume that való is not a true argument-taking predicate: it is a formative element; however, it also carries combinatorial information. Furthermore, I propose that the VP headed by való is annotated with the ó=¯ equation, and in this way we can also capture cases in which való simultaneously adjectivalizes more than one constituent (for instance, an argument and an adjunct at the same time). In the second type, which is limited to designated oblique arguments of nominals derived from a small subset of verbal predicates, the oblique argument preceding the head is not adjectivalized. In my new analysis I draw a parallel between a special V' portion of the Hungarian VP, which dominates a particular VM (verbal modifier) constituent and the V head, and a corresponding N' portion of the NP, which dominates the same VM constituent and the nominal head. Moreover, I assume that these nominals inherit the distinguishing feature of the input verb to the effect that the VM position has to be filled by the designated oblique argument. The third type, in which the oblique argument or adjunct follows the head and must not be adjectivalized, is rather rare and it is limited to cases in which we can clearly identify the post-head constituent as belonging to the NP headed by the nominal and not to any other element (for instance the verbal predicate) of the sentence. I assume that these post-head constituents are right-adjoined to the DPs in which their nominal heads occur, and they get integrated into the NPs they belong to by outside-in functional uncertainty.