Between adjective and noun

Abstract

We look at the presuffixal vowels occurring after adjectival and nominal stems in Hungarian. We show that their “low” or “nonlow” status depends not only on the morphological category and arbitrary lexical properties of the stem, but also on its semantic properties and syntactic position, as well as the identity of the suffix and the typical environments in which the suffix occurs. Syntactic positions can be arranged in a scale ranging from more adjectival (less nominal) to less adjectival (more nominal). The same scale may be applied to suffixes typical of these syntactic positions. The lowness of the presuffixal vowels neatly follows these scales, with no variation at the two edges and a zone of variation in the middle of the scale.