Studies in linguistics [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION The papers contained in this volume have been written mainly by (younger) members of our deparlmeiit or by those who majored from this department. Their main interest lies in linguistics. The only exception is Judit Molnár who specializes in Canadian literature, and, as attested by her paper, she has a broader scope of interest and is aware of the fact that literature is written "in language". The contributors have their own persuasions but, being young, they are open/reccptive to and at the same time critical of new ideas. In his paper "Cognitive verbs in lexical-functional grammar and situation semantics" Tibor Laczkó sets out to demonstrate that situation semantics would serve as an excellent semantic component in the theory of lexical-functional grammar. The author's evidence comes from how the adherents of the two frameworks analyse cognitive verbs. Cognitive verbs behave, in a number of respects, exceptionally. However, if the combination of these two approaches proves to be tenable, the syntactic analysis of cognitive verbs offered by lexical-functional grammar will receive solid semantic support from situational seinantics. In his papers Peter Pelyvás discusses the application of X-theory lo some syntactic phenomena connected with epistemic modality. In „Non-factive predicates in the theory of government and binding" he analyses the treatment of such predicates_and points out some inconsistencies that might have negative consequences lo the system of X- theory as a whole. An alternative solution is outlined in which the syntactic treatment of the Modality-Proposition connection would be radically different from what is usually meant by subordination/embedding in syntactic theory. In "Some thoughts on causation" the author finds fault with some generalizations made by Saksena (1980), Hetzron (1976), and Comrie (1981). On the strength of the Hungarian material presented, he argues that Saksena is right in saying that the affected/non-affected distinction is more basic than role distinctions such as agent and patient but at the same time "agent" and "patient" are appropriate terms for the characterization of the causative (not factitive) constructional type. What is more, if we want to give a detailed description of the various causative constructions, other case categories such as factitive, sublative, etc., must also be taken into consideration. Criticizing Hetzron on one point, he says that, though the causative : factitive distinction does not seem to have a clear-cut reflection in the grammar of languages, Hungarian (and Hetzron used Hunganan material in his paper) is one of the languages in which the causative : factitive distinction is almost completely grammaticalized. Again: on the strength of the Hunganan material presented, the author tries to prove that, contrary to Comrie's statement, Hungarian is not a good counter-example against the passive analysis of causative constructions since in Hungarian the reflexive middle verbs have no personal endings of their own in the plural, and the passive and the factitive forms coincide. Thus, Comrie's statement on one point at least must be modified. In "Bilingualism as reflected in a Canadian novel" Judit Molnár analyses Ronald Sutherland's novel: Lark Des Neiges. She arrives at the conclusion that the interference of two languages cannot be separated from lhat of two cultures: English and French flow easily in and out of each other, yet al times, because they are mixed, they give a fragmentary character to the novel's diction. The easy flow fills the reader with the hope of a possible solution to the problem posed by bilingualism. In "On the relationship between semantic roles and grammatical functions" Tibor Laczkó investigates a small section of the manifold interrelationships between semantic roles and grammatical functions. He argues that the derived nominal forms of verbs selecting two active