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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 feedback, 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 occurs in both languages, especially in certain registers and styles and especially 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 adequate 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 English correspondent of this prefix? Apparently, be- has quite a good number of different meanings, corresponding 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 + 61 *
