Starting Page > Departments >  Department of Theoretical Linguistics > Hungarian Historical Generative Syntax Research Group > Diachronic and comparative linguistic study of Hungarian noun phrases and determiners (OTKA PD 112828) 2014-2017

Diachronic and comparative linguistic study
of Hungarian noun phrases and determiners
(OTKA PD 112828)
2014-2017

Principal investigator: Barbara Egedi

The aim of this project is to describe and analyze the syntactic changes that characterize the history of the Hungarian noun phrase structure. The use of the Old Hungarian definite article was more restricted than it is today and that the emergence of the article had several structural consequences. Collecting a large amount of relevant data will show the directions these changes take in the subsequent period. The research will also analyze cases when there were more than one competing strategies to fulfill the same grammatical function and will account for word order varieties that have already been lost. The collection and arrangement of data is supported by the Old and Middle Hungarian Corpus, a digitized and searchable database of historical linguistic records, available for public use.

The research intends to use comparative and typological methods as well. This means that comparing syntactic properties of closely related languages (Ob-Ugric languages in this case as compared with Hungarian) may reveal what the structure of nominal constructions looked like before the appearance of the first written records. Furthermore, so far unnoticed dialectal variations in Hungarian will also be described concerning the use of demonstratives and possessive constructions. Finally, studying languages that are not related to Hungarian, but in which the emergence and early use of the definite article is well documented in historical records, will hopefully reveal the common patterns and universal mechanisms behind certain syntactic changes.

Talks

The fifth element: the associative-situational use in referential marking. [slides]

50th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE50)

Zürich. 2017. 10-13 September 2017.

Anchoring reference with modifiers - Once more about the Old Hungarian definite article and its regular absence. [slides]

13th International Conference on the Structure of Hungarian (ICSH13)

Budapest. 29-30 June 2017.

Two paths running across the same field - The grammaticalization of referential marking in Uralic languages. [slides]

Conference on the Syntax of Uralic Languages (SOUL)

Budapest. 27-28 June 2017.

How many kinds of definiteness can be encoded? A cross-linguistic analysis of diachronic and synchronic evidence. (invited talk) [slides]

Lund, 15-16 June 2017.

Egedi, Barbara: Azonosít vagy módosít? Kis ómagyar jelzőtipológia [Identifying or modifying? A concise typology of Old Hungarian adnominal modifiers] [slides]

Nyelvelmélet és diakrónia 3.

22-23 November 2016. Pázmány Péter Catholic University

Egedi, Barbara: A diachronic typology of definite articles. [slides]

49th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE2016)

31 August - 3. September 2016. Naples, University of Naples Federico II

Egedi Barbara: Az első névelő nyomában. [In search of the first article] [See the paper below]

A nyelvtörténeti kutatások újabb eredményei IX.

27-28 April 2016. Szeged, University of Szeged

Egedi, Barbara: Two kinds of definiteness in Coptic. [slides]

Crossroads: Whence and whither? Egyptian-Coptic linguistics in comparative perspectives.

17-20. February 2016. Berlin, Humboldt-Universität & Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften.

Egedi, Barbara: Competing strategies: demonstrative renewal in Hungarian. [handout]

17th Diachronic Generative Syntax Conference (DIGS17).

29-31 May 2015. Reykjavík, University of Iceland

Egedi, Barbara: The Hungarian definite article across time: an account of its spreading. [handout]

12th International Conference on the Structure of Hungarian (ICSH12).

22-23 May 2015. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics

Egedi Barbara: Határozottan dialektusfüggő: a kopt nyelvjárások névelőrendszerei. [Definitely dialect-dependent: the Coptic article-systems]

Nyelvelmélet és dialektológia 3.

18 November 2014. Pázmány Péter Catholic University [See the paper below]

Papers

Egedi Barbara: Az első névelő nyomában [In search of the first article]. Nyelvtudományi közlemények 112: 243-261.

Egedi, Barbara (forthcoming): Word order change at the left periphery of the Hungarian noun phrase. In: Martins, Ana Maria – Adriana Cardoso (eds.): Word order change. Oxford Studies in Diachronic and Historical Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press (kézirat)

Egedi Barbara: Változó struktúrák, versengő stratégiák: a mutató névmási módosítók esete. [Changing structures, competing strategies: The case of demonstratives] Általános Nyelvészeti Tanulmányok 27 (2015) 107-132.

Egedi Barbara: Határozottan dialektusfüggő: kopt nyelvjárások névelőrendszerei. [Definitely dialect-dependent: the Coptic article-systems] In: É. Kiss Katalin – Hegedűs Attila – Pintér Lilla (szerk.): Nyelvelmélet és dialektológia 3. Piliscsaba: PPKE BTK Elméleti Nyelvészeti Tanszék – Magyar Nyelvészeti Tanszék, 2015, 81-98. (13)

Abstracts and Drafts:

Egedi Barbara: Azonosít vagy módosít? Kis ómagyar jelzőtipológia [Identifying or modifying? A concise typology of Old Hungarian adnominal modifiers]. Submitted to Nyelvtudományi Közlemények

Egedi, Barbara: Two kinds of definiteness in Coptic. (forthcoming in Lingua Aegyptia)

Egedi, Barbara: Competing strategies: demonstrative renewal in Hungarian. (manuscript, in preparation)

Last modified: 12.10.2017

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