Ways of licensing Hungarian external possessors

Abstract

This paper examines the status of Hungarian dative noun phrases interpreted as external possessors of a sister constituent. It challenges the widely accepted view put forth by Szabolcsi (1983; 1992, etc.) that external possessors are uniformly assigned a theta role by the possessum, and they are uniformly raised from its maximal projection via A-bar movement. It argues instead that external possessors can also be base-generated outside the projection of the possessum, binding its internal possessor, and can receive an ‘affected’ theta role from the verb. The paper distinguishes three different types of external possession, showing that they have different licensing conditions, and different agreement properties. (i) The external possessor can be generated externally, and be assigned an ‘affected’ theta role by the verb. The referential identity of the dative marked affected participant and the pro-dropped internal possessor is due to a binding relation between them. (ii) The external possessor can be lice...