Occurrence and identification of implicit arguments in Hungarian

Abstract

In English many verbs can occur with either an overt argument or one that is lexically unrealized. To account for this phenomenon some researchers (e.g. Fillmore, 1986; Goldberg, 1995) have argued that the omissibility is lexically defined. On the other hand, Groefsema (1995) has proposed a semantic/pragmatic explanation: an argument can be left implicit if the verb puts a selection restriction on the argument such that it gives a relevant interpretation, or if the rest of the utterance makes a relevant interpretation immediately accessible. Hungarian, similarly to other pro-drop languages, allows implicit arguments far more freely than English does. In my paper, I examine this freer occurrence of implicit arguments on the basis of a 310 minute long spoken corpus. I demonstrate that Groefsema's two proposals are also valid in Hungarian. However, there are many instances where implicit arguments cannot be identified by Groefsema's two proposals. In Hungarian an argument can also be left implicit if extending its immediate context leads to a relevant interpretation. The conclusion of my investigation is that Hungarian verbs do not vary as to whether they can occur with implicit arguments, but they vary as to in what manner or in what context they can occur with them.