In
this paper I offer a comprehensive analysis of the three ways of expressing
oblique arguments and adjuncts of event nominals in Hungarian. In the first,
and by far the most productive, type the arguments and adjuncts preceding the
head have to be adjectivalized by means of either the adjectivizing suffix -i (but it can only attach to the
majority of postpositions) or val—,
one of the present participial counterparts of the copula van 'be'. I assume that val—
is not a true argument-taking predicate: it is a formative element; however, it
also carries combinatorial information. Furthermore, I propose that the VP
headed by val— is annotated with the Ð=¯ equation, and in this way we can also capture
cases in which val— simultaneously
adjectivalizes more than one constituent (for instance, an argument and an
adjunct at the same time). In the second
type, which is limited to designated oblique arguments of nominals derived from
a small subset of verbal predicates, the oblique argument preceding the head is
not adjectivalized. In my new analysis I draw a parallel between a special V'
portion of the Hungarian VP, which dominates a particular VM (verbal modifier)
constituent and the V head, and a corresponding N' portion of the NP, which
dominates the same VM constituent and the nominal head. Moreover, I assume that
these nominals inherit the distinguishing feature of the input verb to the
effect that the VM position has to be filled by the designated oblique
argument. The third type, in which the oblique argument or adjunct follows the
head and must not be adjectivalized, is rather rare and it is limited to cases
in which we can clearly identify the post-head constituent as belonging to the
NP headed by the nominal and not to any other element (for instance the verbal
predicate) of the sentence. I assume that these post-head constituents are
right-adjoined to the DPs in which their nominal heads occur, and they get
integrated into the NPs they belong to by outside-in functional uncertainty.