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HUNGARIAN-ENGLISH LINGUISTIC CONTRASTS. A PRACTICAL APPROACH
4.2 OBLIGATORY COMPLEMENTS OF THE VERB
The central element in each sentence is the Verb (V). Different verbs have dif¬
ferent numbers of obligatory complements, and the number of obligatory
complements required by an L1 verb may be different from that required by
its L2 correspondent.
Consider the sentences:
"I told my name.
*Why didn’t you greet?
"I want to tell a few words about this.
In Hungarian it is perfectly all right to say Megmondtam a nevemet, Miért
nem köszöntél, Szeretnék néhány szót mondani erről. In Hungarian the verb
mondani and köszönni can be used without an indirect object (részeshatározó ),
while the indirect object is always obligatory with tell and greet in English.
1his contrast then may lead to interference errors. In the case of tell we have
the following picture:
Hungarian English
mondani (el-, meg-) say
tell
With the Hungarian verb(s) the indirect object is optional, while in English
it is optional with say but obligatory with tell. Basically, what we have here is
a divergent phenomenon: one Hungarian word corresponds to two English
words depending on the presence or absence of an indirect object. In this case,
experience supports the claim of classical CA that such differences (divergent
phenomena) cause considerable difficulty to learners.
Accordingly, in translating the following sentences obligatory complements
must be added:
Adj tüzet. Monda, hogy szeretsz. Nem szoktam könyvet kölcsönadni. Meg¬
kérdeztem, de nem válaszolt.
Sometimes ít is an English verb that can be used without an object, while in
Hungarian it is obligatory:
The committee adjourned without reaching a decision. (... elnapolta az ülest)
It is important to be polite if we want to avoid giving offence. (... valakit
megsertsünk)
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