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HUNGARIAN-ENGLISH GRAMMATICAL CONTRASTS: THE VERB PHRASE
Language fixes a world that is so much more stable and coherent than what
we actually see that it takes its place in our consciousness and becomes what
we think we have seen. And since normal perception works by constant feed¬
back, the gap between the real world and the socially constructed world is
constantly being reduced, so that what we do 'see’ tends to become what we
can say (Kress and Hodge 1979: 5).
Shifting emphasis from dynamic actions and processes to resulting states oc¬
curs in both languages, especially in certain registers and styles and espe¬
cially in the written mode. Apparently, the difference between English and
Hungarian lies in the fact that this phenomenon is more common in English,
probably due to the greater propensity of English for the reification of events
and processes (noted by Whorf 1956) and the greater impact made on English
by the language of science.
Most of the errors attributable to interlingual differences in expressing states
and events will be covert errors or stylistic errors, which should not bother
the beginner or intermediate level learner unduly. However, advanced learners
might benefit from studying such interlingual differences. A stylistically ade¬
quate piece of writing in English must be more ‘stative’ than a corresponding
Hungarian one (Heltai 1994).
4.6 CORRESPONDENTS OF HUNGARIAN PREFIXES IN ENGLISH
Study the following correspondences:
bejön come in
beteljesedik come true
beterjeszt (indítványt) submit (a proposal)
betör (házba) break in(to) a house)
betör (ajtót) break in/down (the door)
betér (lovat) break in (a horse)
begyullad get scared
bevallal undertake, take up, agree to do
bealszik oversleep
besokall get fed up with
What is the meaning ofthe Hungarian verbal prefix be-, and what is the Eng¬
lish correspondent of this prefix?
Apparently, be- has quite a good number of different meanings, correspond¬
ing to various verbal constructions in English. In general, it can be said that
Hungarian, as an agglutinative language, has a rich array of verbal affixes that
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