Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Epistemic/Deontic Suffix -Hat/Het in Hungarian: Derivational or Inflectional?

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Boundaries Crossed, at the Interfaces of Morphosyntax, Phonology, Pragmatics and Semantics

Part of the book series: Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory ((SNLT,volume 94))

  • 476 Accesses

Abstract

In virtually all grammatical accounts of Hungarian, the suffix hat/het (e.g. tanul-hat ‘can learn (from)’, es-het ‘may fall’) is categorized as derivational. In an innovative article, Kenesei (1996) reexamines this conventional wisdom, and argues that based on the morpho-syntax of the language -hat/het should be considered an inflectional suffix. In this work I claim that morpho-phonological evidence suggests otherwise, and offer a reconciliation between the dual patterning of -hat/het: one based on morpho-syntax, the other based on morpho-phonology.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 139.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 179.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 179.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    The vowel alternation in the suffix -hat/het exhibits the effects of the well-known and well-studied palatal vowel harmony process of Hungarian. For comprehensive discussion and bibliography, see Törkenczy (2011). Since this topic is not germane to the present contribution, to the extent possible, in analytical discussions I will cite Hungarian words that are back harmonic (following Rebrus and Polgárdi 1997).

  2. 2.

    So while the frequentative derivational suffix -gat/get can only attach to transitive verbs (olvas-gat-ok but *szalad-gat-ok; see above), -hat/het has no selectional restrictions (olvas-hat-ok ‘I may read,’ szalad-hat-ok ‘I may run’).

  3. 3.

    In the three-way suffix alternation o/ö/e vowel harmony determines the backness value of the basic rounded mid vowel (o vs. ö), augmented by local unrounding, whose effect is to change front rounded mid ö to front unrounded low e if the immediately preceding front vowel is unrounded. For discussion, see Ringen and Vago (1998), among others.

  4. 4.

    The present tense is a zero morpheme.

  5. 5.

    The patterning of the infinitive suffix -n(i) is another case whose derivational vs. inflectional status is in part tied to default vowel height. For analysis in terms of allomorphy, see Siptár (2009); for analysis within Optimality Theory, see Vago (2017a).

  6. 6.

    Suffix-initial V is subject to deletion after V. For discussion and analysis, see Vago (2017a) and references therein.

  7. 7.

    In Rebrus and Polgárdi’s (1997) account, floating A can also associate leftward to a preceding V.

  8. 8.

    Default vowels account for height features; other features are supplied independently (e.g. vowel harmony).

  9. 9.

    For discussion and further references, see Ritter (1995), Stiebels and Wunderlich (1999), and Siptár and Törkenczy (2000), among others.

  10. 10.

    STEM level cyclicity between the morphology and phonology modules has been advocated for non-concatenative inflections (Bermúdez-Otero 2011, forthcoming), among others.

  11. 11.

    In a series of (invited) lectures, this author has presented analyses of a broad range of topics in Hungarian phonology and morphology within the Stratal OT framework (Vago 2007, 2008, 2011a, b, 2012, 2013a, b, c, 2016, 2017a, b).

  12. 12.

    There are only seven stems in which the alternating vowel is not mid. These high and low vowels are fully specified lexically. For the list, as well as related facts, see Siptár and Törkenczy (2000:214–218).

  13. 13.

    Epenthetic vowels that appear in suffix initial position following CC clusters behave differently (see Vago 1980, 2017b).

  14. 14.

    Some of the suffixes have alternate forms, some predictable, some not; see Siptár and Törkenczy (2000).

  15. 15.

    Trommer (2011) discusses three types of stem structures. (15) is an instantiation of morphological stems, whereby each stem + affix sequence forms a new stem (e.g., [[szárny]ST + [As]SUFF]ST).

  16. 16.

    -Vn is a word-final suffix, so its index is moot. Otherwise, an immediately following (to respect locality) V-initial suffix will be relevant for the indexed constraint; hence, V is expected to be low by default. For the alternation of V in -Vn, cf. nagy ‘great,’ nagy-on ‘greatly’ (the adjective nagy is exceptionally not lowering).

  17. 17.

    This restriction will be modified for verbs in the next section.

  18. 18.

    In addition, the lack of WORD level exceptionaliy for height values renders the indexed constraint *MIDL vacuous in the WORD level phonology module.

References

  • Anttila, Arto. 2002. Morphologically conditioned phonological alternations. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 20: 1–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Aronoff, Mark. 1976. Word formation in generative grammar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bauer, Laurie. 1983. English word-formation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Bermúdez-Otero, Ricardo. 2011. Cyclicity. In The Blackwell Companion to Phonology, ed. Marc van Oostendorp, Colin J. Ewen, Elizabeth Hume, and Karen Rice, 2019–2048. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bermúdez-Otero, Ricardo. Forthcoming. Stratal optimality theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bermúdez-Otero, Ricardo, and A.M.S. McMahon. 2006. English phonology and morphology. In The handbook of english linguistics, ed. B. Aarts, and A.M.S. McMahon, 382–410. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Gouskova, Maria. 2013. Unexceptional segments. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 30: 79–133.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jensen, John, and Margaret Stong-Jensen. 1989. The strict cycle condition and epenthesis in Hungarian. NELS 19: 223–235.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kiparsky, Paul. 2000. Opacity and cyclicity. The Linguistic Review 17: 351–365.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kiparsky, Paul. 2003. Finnish noun inflection. In Generative approaches to finnic and saami linguistics, ed. D. Nelson, and S. Manninen, 109–161. Stanford: CSLI.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kiparsky, Paul. 2011. Compensatory lengthening. In Handbook of the syllable, ed. Charles Cairns, and Eric Raimy, 33–70. Leiden: Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kenesei, István. 1996. Képző vagy nem képző? In I. Terts (ed.) Nyelv, nyelvész, társadalom: Emlékkönyv Szépe György 65.születésnapjára barátaitól, kollégáitól, tanítványaitól, vol. II, 92–95. Pécs: JPTE.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kenesei, István, Robert Vago, and Anna Fenyvesi. 1998. Hungarian. London: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kornai, András. 1990. Hungarian vowel harmony. In Approaches to Hungarian 3: Structures and arguments, ed. István Kenesei, 183–240. Szeged: JATE.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pater, Joe. 2010. Morpheme-specific phonology: Constraint indexation and inconsistency resolution. In Phonological argumentation: Essays on evidence and motivation, ed. Steve Parker, 123–154. London: Equinox.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prince, Alan and Paul Smolensky. (2004 [1993]). Optimality theory: Constraint interaction in generative grammar. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ringen, Catherine O., and Robert Vago. 1998. Hungarian vowel harmony in optimality theory. Phonology 15: 393–416.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ritter, Nancy. 1995. The role of universal grammar in phonology: A government phonology approach to Hungarian. Doctoral dissertation, New York University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rebrus, Péter and Krisztina Polgárdi. 1997. Two default vowels in Hungarian? In Phonology in progress—progress in phonology, ed. G. Booij and J. van der Weijer, HILP Phonology Papers III, 257–275, The Hague: Holland Academic Graphics.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scalise, Sergio. 1984. Generative morphology. Dordrecht: Foris.

    Google Scholar 

  • Siptár, Péter. 2009. Morphology or phonology?: The case of Hungarian -ni. In Approaches to Hungarian, Volume 11: Papers from the 2007 New York Conference, ed. Marcel den Dikken and Robert Vago, 197–215. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Siptár, Péter, and Miklós Törkenczy. 2000. The phonology of Hungarian. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stiebels, Barbara, and Dieter Wunderlich. 1999. Second stems in Hungarian nouns. The Linguistic Review 16: 253–294.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tompa, József (ed.). 1970. A mai magyar nyelv rendszere, vol. I. Akadémiai Kiadó: II. Budapest.

    Google Scholar 

  • Törkenczy, Miklós. 1992. Vowel-zero alternations in Hungarian: A government approach. In Approaches to Hungarian 4: The structure of Hungarian, ed. István Kenesei, and Csaba Pléh, 157–176. Szeged: JATE.

    Google Scholar 

  • Törkenczy, Miklós. 1994. Coronal underspecification and the *CCiVCi constraint. In The even yearbook 1994, ed. László Varga, 225–232. Budapest: ELTE.

    Google Scholar 

  • Törkenczy, Miklós. 1995. Underparsing and overparsing in Hungarian: The/h/ and the epenthetic stems. In Approaches to Hungarian 5: Levels and structures, ed. István Kenesei, 321–340. Szeged: JATE.

    Google Scholar 

  • Törkenczy, Miklós. 2011. Hungarian vowel harmony. In The Blackwell companion to phonology, ed. Marc van Oostendorp, Colin J. Ewen, Elizabeth Hume, and Karen Rice, 2963–2989. Walden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trommer, Jochen. 2011. Phonological sensitivity to morphological structure. In The Blackwell companion to phonology, ed. Marc van Oostendorp, Colin J. Ewen, Elizabeth Hume, and Karen Rice, 2464–2489. Walden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vago, Robert. 1980. The sound pattern of Hungarian. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vago, Robert. 2007. On the analysis of lowering in Hungarian. In Paper presented at the 8th international conference on the structure of Hungarian, CUNY Graduate Center and New York University, 24–27 May.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vago, Robert. 2008. On the phonology of Hungarian inflections. In Lecture presented at the research institute for linguistics of the hungarian academy of sciences, Budapest, Hungary, Apr 22.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vago, Robert. 2011a. In Support of stratal optimality theory: The x-tier phonology of Hungarian. In Invited lecture presented at the CUNY Graduate Center Colloquium, Dec 1.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vago, Robert. 2011b. The inflectional system of Hungarian in Stratal Optimality Theory. In Paper presented at the 10th international conference on the structure of Hungarian, Lund, Sweden, Aug 25–28.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vago, Robert. 2012. Stratal optimality theory: The right model for Hungarian inflections. In Poster presented at the Manchester phonology meeting, Manchester, England, May 24–26.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vago, Robert. 2013a. Hungarian phonology and morphology: Making the case for stratal optimality theory. In Invited lecture presented at the Israeli Phonology Circle, Tel Aviv University, Israel, June 24

    Google Scholar 

  • Vago, Robert. 2013b. The inflectional phonology and morphology of Hungarian in Stratal Optimality Theory. In Invited lecture presented at the 11th International conference on the structure of Hungarian, Piliscsaba, Hungary, Aug 29–31.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vago, Robert. 2013c. Stratal optimality theory: A case study of Hungarian inflections. In Invited lecture presented at LACUS (Linguistics Association of Canada and the United States) conference, Brooklyn College of CUNY, 29 July–1 Aug.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vago, Robert. 2016. An optimality theoretic account of Hungarian inflections. Lecture presented at the Research Institute for Linguistics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary, May 31.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vago, Robert. 2017a. *VV in Hungarian. In Approaches to Hungarian. Vol. 15: Papers from the 2015 Leiden Conference, ed. Harry van der Hulst and Anikó Lipták, 239–251. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vago, Robert. 2017b. Vowel epenthesis in Hungarian. In Paper presented at the 13th International Conference on the Structure of Hungarian, Research Institute for Linguistics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary, 29–30 June.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolf, Matthew. 2011. Exceptionality. In The Blackwell companion to phonology, ed. Marc van Oostendorp, Colin J. Ewen, Elizabeth Hume, and Karen Rice, 2538–2559. Walden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Queens College and the Graduate Center, The City University of New York, Queens, USA

    Robert Vago

Authors
  1. Robert Vago
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Robert Vago .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Research Institute for Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary

    Huba Bartos

  2. Research Institute for Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary

    Marcel den Dikken

  3. Research Institute for Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary

    Zoltán Bánréti

  4. Research Institute for Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary

    Tamás Váradi

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Vago, R. (2018). The Epistemic/Deontic Suffix -Hat/Het in Hungarian: Derivational or Inflectional?. In: Bartos, H., den Dikken, M., Bánréti, Z., Váradi, T. (eds) Boundaries Crossed, at the Interfaces of Morphosyntax, Phonology, Pragmatics and Semantics. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, vol 94. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90710-9_5

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90710-9_5

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-90709-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-90710-9

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation