Oblique-headed relative clauses (Hungarian)

RelPro: Oblique-headed relative clauses include both the nominal head of the relative clause in the main clause and an obligatory coreferential pronoun in the relative clause, generally marked for its oblique role.


(1) kanál-lal esz-em a leves-t.

spoon-ins eat-prs.obj.1sg the soup-acc

‘I’m eating the soup with a spoon.’


(2) ez az a kanál, amel-lyel a leves-t esz-em.

det det the spoon which-ins the soup-acc eat-prs.obj.1sg

‘This is the spoon, with which I’m eating the soup.’


(3) anna bele-szeret-ett a fiú-ba.

Anna into-love-pst.3sg the boy-ill

‘Anna fell in love with the boy.’


(4) találkoz-t-am (az-zal)  a fiú-val, aki-be anna bele-szeret-ett.

meet-pst-1sg det-com  the boy-com who-ill Anna into-love-pst.3sg

‘I have met the boy, with whom Anna fell in love.’


In Hungarian, the head noun of a relative construction in an oblique function (1), (3) is typically expressed by subordination (2), (4), where the case marked determiner (eg. azzal ‘with that’) can optionally appear in the main clause and the head noun is expressed by a pronoun in the subordinate clause (cf. Balogh 2000b: 444‒448, Kenesei et al. 1998: 37‒41).

Author: 

Nikolett F. Gulyás