Approaches to Hungarian 5. [antikvár]

FOREWORD It was ten years ago that Volume One of Approaches to Hungárián appeared, which might give us a chance, if not to celebrate, at least to look back. Approaches to Hungárián was conceived as a two-volume set publishing results of analyses of a more descriptive nature in the first book, and papers of a more theoretical nature in the second, two years later. From its very beginning, the project has succeeded in offering a fórum for linguists from both Hungary and abroad to convey their views often in confrontation with one another, to give opportunities to young scholars to publish their work, to cover different levels of linguistic analysis, and to provide readers with a publication that communicates current research fairly quickly. Volume Five, much like the previous one, contains the proceedings of a con-ference. Owing to generous grants from the Soros Foundation and the Ministry of Educat-ion, Szeged hosted the Second International Conference on the Structure of Hungárián, April 10-12, 1994. Rather than merely reading and commenting on each other's work, it was an occasion for lively debate and open criticism. Fortunately, a large number of papers were centered on similar or sometimes identical topics, such as the semantics and/or the syntax of the definiteness effect, aspect and preverbal prefixes, all related in intricate ways as will transpire from the papers below. Needless to say, the present volume does not break the mould: although the actual discussions could not be reproduced here, the conflicting views are well represent-ed in the articles themselves. Where there is less chance for controversy here, in phonolo-gy or morphology, for instance, a wider coverage is provided. As usual, various approaches are represented here, in accordance with the title of the series. Finally, somé of the younger generation of linguists that took part in the conference alsó have contributed to the collection. This book has been produced in part from camera-ready copies. The originál intention was to speed up production and avoid inevitable typographical errors (at the expense of uniformity), but since the publication process has been slower than anticipated, the advantage of speed has clearly been lost. It is nevertheless believed that the papers will be interesting enough to generate further discussion and research. The current formát of biannual conferences and subse-quent publications raises hope for the continued life of this series. Finally, I wish to acknowledge the grant from the Hungárián National Research Fund (OTKA T-6604) that made this publication possible, and to thank Prof. Csaba Pléh for his copious advice in the preparation of the conference, Mr. Szilárd Szentgyörgyi for his devotion to organizing it, and Mr. Szentgyörgyi, Ms. Anikó Lipták, and Ms. Katalin Liszi for actually running it smoothly. Ms. Lipták's assistance in editing the present volume is alsó appreciated.