Agreement of predicative adjectives (Hungarian)

PredAdjNumAgr: Predicative adjectives show only number agreement.


(1) a virág szép.

the flower beautiful

’The flower is beautiful.’


(2) a virág-ok szép-ek.

the flower-pl beautiful-pl

’The flowers are beautiful.’


(3) a virág-ok szép-ek vol-t-ak.

the flower-pl beautiful-pl cop-pst-3pl

’The flowers were beautiful.’


Adjectives can only take suffixes when they are in the predicative position. Predicative adjectives agree with the subject (1)-(3), but unlike verbs, they only reflect the number of the subject (cf. Lengyel 2000a: 142‒150).

Author: 

Nikolett F. Gulyás