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Approaches to Hungarian: Volume 14: Papers from the 2013 Piliscsaba Conference
Edited by Katalin É. Kiss, Balázs Surányi and Éva Dékány
[Approaches to Hungarian 14] 2015
► pp. 209–244

The Predicationality Hypothesis

The case of Hungarian and German

Cataphoric propositional pronoun insertion (CPPI) in complex sentences is subject to language-specific restrictions. In Hungarian, the insertion of the cataphoric propositional pronoun azt is possible in complex sentences with assertive matrix verbs (‘say’), but not with factives (‘regret’), while German displays a mirror pattern.

In our strictly modular theoretical framework we argue that CPPI is dependent on the syntactic type and the realization of Spec-CP in the embedded clause. In accordance with Chomsky (2008), we assume that the derivation of Spec-CP results from the instantiation of the edge-feature (EF) in C.

Narrow Syntax is, however, only responsible for the actual derivation of Spec-CP, not for the interpretational effects of this position. The discourse-semantic content of Spec-CP can vary among different languages. In Hungarian the EF is associated with the predicational status of the embedded clause, and in German it is associated with the clause’s non-predicational status (the Predicationality Hypothesis).

Published online: 3 June 2015
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https://doi.org/10.1075/atoh.14.09mol
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