The Typology and Communicative Role of Support Verb Constructions in Old Hungarian in Transylvania

Abstract

THE TYPOLOGY AND COMMUNICATIVE ROLE OF SUPPORT-VERB CONSTRUCTIONS IN OLD HUNGARIAN IN TRANSYLVANIA

(Abstract)

Support-verb constructions can be defined in the broadest sense as semi-compositional, verbo-nominal phrases consisting of a semantically dominant nominal in the nominative or accusative case, with or without an inflectional suffix, eventually with a postposition, and a desemanticized support-verb, similar to auxiliary verbs, the constructions being often interchangeable without any semantic difference with monolexemic verbs or nominals that are derived from the nominal element of the phrases, and their frequent use is generally a feature of specialised languages. After a historical sketch of different approaches to support-verb constructions from the normative perspective of language cultivation, respectively from the descriptive perspective of linguistics, on the basis of linguistic data collected from the Historical Dictionary of the Hungarian Language in Transylvania I examine those constructions in which the verbal constituent is one of the verbs ad, ejt, esik, fog, folytat, hagy, művel, szerez, tart, tesz, űz, vall, vesz, vet and visel. In analyzing the data, I use a model of categorization based on prototype theory and – showing the complex internal structure of the analysed verbal groups – I distinguish between prototypical support-verb constructions, those with verbal content and a nominal element that is not an action noun, those with a monolexemic verbal variant independent of the form of the nominal component in the periphrastic construction, those that cannot be replaced by a simple verb, and those that are direct results of language contact. The final part of the paper attempts to (partially) answer the question regarding the nature of the inherent communicative function of support-verb constructions which, despite the linguistic economy and the essentially synthetic character of the Hungarian verbal system, ensures the historical continuity of the use of analytic verbo-nominal constructions, dating back to the late Old Hungarian period.

Keywords: support-verb construction, language cultivation, prototype theory, variativity, iconicity.