Obviation in Hungarian: What is its shape, and is it due to competition?
Anna Szabolcsi
April 2021 

According to the classical description of obviation, the subject of a subjunctive is disjoint in reference from the attitude-holder subject of the immediately higher clause. * Je veux que je parte. I want that I leave.SUBJ `I want for me to leave’ Inspired by Ruwet (1984/1991) and Farkas (1988; 1992), I present data from Hungarian where obviation in certain subjunctives is plainly lifted, and data where obviation occurs in indicatives. I argue that obviation is not the result of competition with another construction, and point to promising potential accounts in terms of a clash in semantics or pragmatics. My aim is to contribute desiderata for a theory of obviation and exemptions from obviation in fairly informal terms.

Format:	[ pdf ]
Reference:	lingbuzz/005313 (please use that when you cite this article)
Published in:	See at https://www.glossa-journal.org/articles/10.5334/gjgl.1421/
keywords:	hungarian, obviation, blocking, subjunctive, infinitive, indicative, responsibility, direct experience, speech acts, semantics, syntax
previous versions:	v3 [January 2021] v2 [January 2021] v1 [July 2020]
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