The feature geometry of generic inclusive null DPs in Hungarian 177
(44) John knows how one feels in hospital.
(45) John knows how people feel in hospital.
GN merely adds the generic self-detached attitudinal modal base to the sentence but
leaves its truth conditions unaffected (examples modelled on Moltmann 2012):
(46) You can’t imagine how much one suffers during cosmetic surgery!
(47) You can’t imagine how much people suffer during cosmetic surgery.
While the sentence in (46) is a statement describing somebody’s personal feelings with
the speaker’s intention to trigger sympathy on the part of the addressee, (47) is a sheer
statement of facts with no such intention on the part of the speaker.
As is noted by Moltmann (2006, 2012 ), quantificational temporal and locative
adverbials may interact with the universal quantifier binding 3pl generic exclusive
people but they cannot do so in the case of generic inclusive one, which is in the scope
of GN but is not bound by it:
(48) People sometimes receive strange advertisements in the mail.
(49) One sometimes receives strange advertisements in the mail.
While the generic exclusive subject in (48) can be interpreted as ‘some people are such
that....’, this is impossible in (49).
Having explained the distinguishing properties of generic inclusive one vs. generic
exclusive people, let us now turn to Hungarian.
Tóth (2010) notes that the generic exclusive reading of 3pl null subjects in
Hungarian is available only if certain locative and temporal adverbials are added to the
sentence, (51). In the absence of such adverbials, the null subject will be interpreted
with unique reference, (52):
3 pl generic exclusive lexical subject
(50) A középkor-ban az ember-ek fél-tek a villámlás-tól.
the Middle Ages-iness the man-pl fear-past 3 pl the lightning-abl
‘In the Middle Ages people feared lightining.’
3 pl generic exclusive null subject
(51) *(A középkor-ban) fél-tek proGN
the Middle Ages-iness fear-past 3 pl (people)
a villámlás-tól.
the lightning-abl
‘In the Middle Ages people feared lightning.’