Non-periphrastic causatives (Hungarian)

MorfNonpfrCC: Causatives are expressed using a non-periphrastic, morphological strategy.


(1) a fiú könyv-et olvas.

the boy book-acc read.prs.3sg

‘The boy is reading a book.’


(2) a tanár könyv-et olvas-tat a fiú-val.

the teacher book-acc read-caus.prs.3sg the boy-ins

‘The teacher makes the boy read from the book.’


In Hungarian, non-periphrastic causation is expressed morphologically with the derivational suffixes ­-at/-­et, -­tat/­-tet (Keszler  2000a:  307‒320). (The causee takes a comitative-instrumental suffix and the causer is in the nominative case (É. Kiss 2002: 36‒37).)

Author: 

Nikolett F. Gulyás