Obviation in Hungarian: What is its scope, and is it due to competition?

Anna Szabolcsi

doi:10.5334/GJGL.1421

Obviation in Hungarian: What is its scope, and is it due to competition?

Anna Szabolcsi

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

According to the classical description of obviation, the subject of a subjunctive is disjoint in reference from the attitude-holder subject of the immediately higher clause. *Je veux que je parte. I want that I leave.SUBJ 'I want for me to leave' Inspired by Ruwet (1984/1991) and Farkas (1988; 1992), I present data from Hungarian where obviation in certain subjunctives is plainly lifted, and data where obviation occurs in indicatives. I argue that obviation is not the result of competition with another construction, and point to promising potential accounts in terms of a clash in semantics or pragmatics. My aim is to contribute desiderata for a theory of obviation and exemptions from obviation in fairly informal terms.

Original language	English (US)
Article number	1421
Journal	Glossa
Volume	6
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.5334/GJGL.1421
State	Published - Apr 26 2021

Keywords

Competition
Hungarian
Obviation
RESPonsibility
Sincerity conditions
Subjunctive

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Linguistics and Language
Language and Linguistics

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10.5334/GJGL.1421

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title = "Obviation in Hungarian: What is its scope, and is it due to competition?",

abstract = "According to the classical description of obviation, the subject of a subjunctive is disjoint in reference from the attitude-holder subject of the immediately higher clause. *Je veux que je parte. I want that I leave.SUBJ 'I want for me to leave' Inspired by Ruwet (1984/1991) and Farkas (1988; 1992), I present data from Hungarian where obviation in certain subjunctives is plainly lifted, and data where obviation occurs in indicatives. I argue that obviation is not the result of competition with another construction, and point to promising potential accounts in terms of a clash in semantics or pragmatics. My aim is to contribute desiderata for a theory of obviation and exemptions from obviation in fairly informal terms.",

keywords = "Competition, Hungarian, Obviation, RESPonsibility, Sincerity conditions, Subjunctive",

author = "Anna Szabolcsi",

note = "Funding Information: I thank Chris Barker, Julie Goncharov, Julia Horvath, Magdalena Kaufmann, Philippe Schlenker, Zolt{\'a}n Gendler Szab{\'o}, and the audiences of talks in Tel-Aviv Linguistics, in the NYU Semantics Group, and at the G{\"o}ttingen workshop on Agency and Intention in Language (all on zoom). I am indebted to the three anonymous Glossa reviewers for very helpful suggestions. A subset of the observations, though not the current analysis, had been presented at a seminar at New York University (see Szabolcsi 2010); I am grateful to the seminar participants for input and discussion. All the shortcomings are my own. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics",

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doi = "10.5334/GJGL.1421",

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PY - 2021/4/26

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N2 - According to the classical description of obviation, the subject of a subjunctive is disjoint in reference from the attitude-holder subject of the immediately higher clause. *Je veux que je parte. I want that I leave.SUBJ 'I want for me to leave' Inspired by Ruwet (1984/1991) and Farkas (1988; 1992), I present data from Hungarian where obviation in certain subjunctives is plainly lifted, and data where obviation occurs in indicatives. I argue that obviation is not the result of competition with another construction, and point to promising potential accounts in terms of a clash in semantics or pragmatics. My aim is to contribute desiderata for a theory of obviation and exemptions from obviation in fairly informal terms.

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Obviation in Hungarian: What is its scope, and is it due to competition?

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Keywords

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