chapter 7
The feature geometry of generic inclusive
null DPs in Hungarian*
Gréte Dalmi
Jan Kochanowski University, KielceThis paper claims that Hungarian allows generic inclusive subjects to be null
only if they have a generic inclusive antecedent in an adjacent clause. This
distinguishes Hungarian from all the other types of Null Subject Languages
(NSLs) identified by Roberts & Holmberg (2010). The generic inclusive lexical
az emberGEN ‘the man’ is a first person-oriented genericity-inducing lexical item
that always receives widest scope interpretation, just like English one. The generic
inclusive null subject, proGEN, on the other hand, is an anaphor that requires
a generic inclusive antecedent, as does English oneself (Moltmann 2006, 2010 ,
2012 ). A similar duality is observed with PRO, the silent counterpart of generic
inclusive one in non-finite clauses.- Introduction
Hungarian generic inclusive DPs differ from generic inclusive lexical and null DPs
in the four major types of Null Subject Languages (NSLs) identified by Roberts &
Holmberg (2010) in their syntactic properties. The generic inclusive lexical DP az
emberGN ‘the manGN’ is a free referential expression with widest scope interpretation
(just like one in English), which never requires an antecedent. The generic inclusive
null DP, proGN, on the other hand, is a bound variable which always requires a generic
inclusive antecedent, as does oneself in English (Moltmann 2006, 2010 , 2012 ).^1 Unlike
- I wish to thank the following people for reading and commenting on earlier versions of
this paper: Huba Bartos, Ágnes Bende-Farkas, Katalin É.Kiss, Hans-Martin Gärtner, Veronika
Hegedűs, Tabea Ihsane, Małgorzata Krzek, Edith Moravcsik, Halldór Ármann Sigurðsson and
Gabriella Tóth. I also express my gratitude to the anonymous reviewers and the editors for
their helpful comments and suggestions.
- While generic inclusive one is fairly common in British English, American English
speakers tend to use you instead (Moltmann 2006).