Partitive Noun Phrases in Hungarian

Although a variety of nominal constructions have been examined in Hungarian linguistics, partitive noun phrases have barely received any attention. In this paper, it is argued that there are four basic types of partitive construction in Hungarian: (i) genitive, (ii) dative, (iii) "közül" and (iv) elative. In distinction to genitive partitives, dative, "közül" and elative partitives allow splitting of head and dependent. What is more, split partitive noun phrases show diagnostics of long distance dependencies: they are subject to the Adjunct Island Constraint and to the constraint imposed by non-bridge verbs. It is argued that the behaviour of split partitives can be accounted for in purely functional terms.