Verbal Category and Nominal Function: Evidence from Hungarian Subject Clauses

The aim of this paper is to investigate the categorial and the functional status of the clausal arguments of modal and evaluative predicates in Hungarian. Such an argument can be realized either as a finite that-clause or as an optionally agreement-marked infinitival clause, and in both cases it is claimed to map onto SUBJ. Agreement-marked infinitives are shown to have no nominal properties, contra É. Kiss (1987, 2002) and in contrast with Portuguese agreement-marked infinitives. Clausal subjects are always verbal categorially in Hungarian, despite being mapped onto a canonically nominal function. That-clauses can have a pronominal associate, in which case this pronoun is the subject of the matrix predicate and the that-clause itself is an adjunct to it. Infinitival clauses cannot have pronominal associates because infinitives cannot be adjuncts of nominal categories in Hungarian.