C ONSTRUCTIONS AND THEIR P OSSIBLE H UNGARIAN E QUIVALENTS
4. Contrasts in verb classes involved
While in English, there are semantically well-definable classes of verbs participating in the dative shift (see above), representing extensions or metaphorical extensions from the prototypical case of GIVE-verbs, in Hungarian, following from the fact that an NP carrying the dative suffix may be used to express the participant role ’maleficiary’, practically any transitive verb may appear in a construction with an NP carrying the dative suffix. I have been able to find just two verb classes which participate in the English double object construction but their equivalent Hungarian constructions do not include an NP in the dative case.
4.1 Verbs of refusal
One is commonly called verbs of refusal although it contains only three members: refuse, deny, spare, and only the first two represent the case where the Hungarian equivalent does not involve the dative.
(8) His mother denied Johnny a birthday cake.
Mr Smith refused Bob a raise in salary.
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This class is related to the ditransitive construction through the relation of negation. These verbs imply that the possibility for successful transfer has arisen, but the agent is understood to refuse to act as the causer of it (Goldberg 1995:33). On the other hand, these verbs do not take part in the prepositional construction. The lack of the prepositional construction is due to the fact that they cannot be readily understood in the terms of caused motion and another factor may be that the juxtaposition of the referents of the indirect and direct objects gives greater emphasis to the personal loss of opportunity suffered by the person referred to in the indirect object NP in accordance with the iconicity principle, stating that the sign is similar to what it signifies. In the prepositional construction, the recipient argument expressed by the prepositional phrase is more removed from the subject and the verb, which is iconic for a less immediate impact of the action by the agent. On the other hand, the juxtaposition of the recipient argument with the verb in the ditransitive construction rather implies a more immediate, stronger effect. This is confirmed by Lakoff and Johnson’s statement (1980:130), who claim that the positional relationship between verb and recipient illustrates the metaphor
‘Closeness is Strength of Effect’. To prove this, they use the example (renumbered here):
(9) a. I taught Greek to Harry.
b. I taught Harry Greek.
saying that in the second sentence where Harry and Greek are next to each other, there is a much stronger implication that Harry actually learned the classic language so the teaching had an effect on him, whereas in the first sentence it is rather the conscious effort on the part of the referent of the subject that is focussed on without any reference to the efficiency of the teaching.
The semantic and syntactic features of deny and refuse as used in the ditransitive construction can be illustrated with the following diagram (Szabóné 2004: 127):
Ditransitive Construction
Sem CAUSE-NOT RECEIVE < agt rec pat >
R: negation R
PRED < >
Syn V SUBJ OBJ OBJ Figure 4
The letter R in the diagram specifies the way in which the verbs of this class are integrated into the construction.
A possible Hungarian equivalent of the second example in (8) involves the use of a verb with a pre-verb referring to the completion of action: megtagad.
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(10) Kovács úr meg/tagad/ta Robi/tól a fizetés/emelés/t.
Kovács Mr pre-verb+deny+Past Sg3 det Robi+abl the payrise+acc With this verb, the NP denoting the potential recipient carries the ablative suffix –tól/-től, the primary meaning of which is movement away from a point in space, from which a secondary meaning developed through metaphorical extension: ’from/ out of sy’s possession or use’
(AkadÉrtSz). In this way, here the negative meaning of the verb is reflected in the meaning of the suffix.
Another possible Hungarian equivalent for the two sentences in (8) could be a complex construction with a matrix clause containing the modal adjective in a negative form nem hajlandó ’unwilling/not willing’, which makes the negative explicit:
(11) Az édesany/ja nem volt hajlandó születésnapi tortá/t süt/ni Jancsi/nak.
The mother+Poss Sg3 not was willing birthday cake+acc bake+inf Johnny+dat
4.2 Complex predicates with GIVE
Another class of verbs the Hungarian equivalents of which do not involve the dative case is the complex predicates with give: e.g. give sy a bump, kick, kiss, look, nod, pat, a piece of one’s mind, pinch, a punch in the nose, push, ride, smack, squeeze, thump, whack. (For a detailed desciption of this class, see Cattell 1984). The use of these instead of the simple verb the nominalised form of which they contain involves two important factors: to imply the purposefulness of the action (which the simple verb forms may or may not imply) and to focus on the action nominalisation presenting it as a result. The use of such expressions in the double object construction is licensed by the metaphors ‘Ideas are objects’ or ‘Actions are objects’ as can be illustrated as shown in Figure 5 below (Szabóné 2004: 100).
With the exception of give sy a kiss, the equivalents of these complex predicates are typically preverb+verb combinations in Hungarian, where the preverb refers to a completed action:
(12) He gave her a bump.
Meg/lök/te.
preverb+bump+Past Sg3 det
However, such an equivalent is also possible in the case of give sy a kiss:
(13) He gave her a kiss.
(a) Ad/ott neki egy puszi/t.
give+Past Sg3 indet her a kiss+acc but also:
(b) Meg/puszil/ta.
preverb+kiss+Past Sg3 indet
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Ditransitive Construction Source domain
Sem CAUSE-RECEIVE < agt rec pat >
R: instance, R
means PRED < >
Syn V SUBJ OBJ OBJ2
IM: Causal Events
as Transfers
Target domain Sem CAUSE-“RECEIVE” < cause aff eff >
R: instance, R
means PRED < >
Syn V SUBJ OBJ OBJ2
Figure 5
5. Conclusion
In my paper, I have contrasted the two constructions participating in the dative shift in the English language with their possible Hungarian equivalents. Perhaps the most notable contrast that has been found between the two languages is that in Hungarian, the same syntactic coding, the dative –nak,-nek suffix is used when the outcome of the situation is not beneficial for the person at the end-point of the transfer (having the participant role ‘maleficiary’), probably to indicate the affectedness of the latter. On the other hand, if it is encoded in the meaning of the verb that the transfer of a concrete or abstract object which would be beneficial for a person is denied (deny, refuse), English applies the double object construction but as one option, the Hungarian language uses a different syntactic coding (the suffix -tól/től, the use of which may be considered to be motivated on account of the fact that its original locational meaning refers to movement away from a point of space so it was possible to
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metaphorically carry it over to the meaning of being deprived of something) from the prototypical equivalent of the double object construction (the suffix –nak/-nek). Further, it has been found that whereas in English the syntactic coding of the participant roles Recipient/Goal (or actual recipient) and Beneficiary (or intended recipient) is systematically distinguished in the prepositional object (oblique) construction, in Hungarian, the same syntactic coding is typically used for them (dative case suffix –nak/-nek) in the equivalent constructions although the semantic distinction can be highlighted with the use of separate lexical elements, postpositives (részére, számára, or even javára). In Hungarian, the idea of successful transfer is often reinforced with the use of preverbs referring to the completion of the action. The analysis confirms Croft’s markedness hierarchy, according to which the overt markedness of the NP having the participant role of Theme involves the overt case-markedness of the NP representing the participant role of Goal, lying downwards of it in the force dynamic structure in Croft’s diagram. A contrast affecting the prototypical verb of give, involved in the dative shift, has been found in its rare use with action nominalisations in the Hungarian language.
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(abbreviated as AkadÉrtSz)
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PhD dissertation. http://phd.om.hu/.
Judit Szabóné Papp
Department of English Literature and Linguistics University of Miskolc
nyejudit@uni-miskolc.hu