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HUNGARIAN-ENGLISH GRAMMATICAL CONTRASTS: THE NOUN PHRASE Mar hosszabb ideje távol volt. — He had been away for a long time. This is a case of deceptive transferability, which remains a common source of error for Hungarian learners of English even at advanced level, as noted by Doughty and Thompson in Problem English (1983). A special case is the English adjective major, which corresponds to comparative adjectives in Hungarian: Az ellenség elfoglalta a nagyobb városokat. — The enemy seized all the major cities. Since Hungarian speakers are influenced by the comparative adjective in their native language, they tend to use comparative adjectives in English, too (greater, bigger, larger) and to underuse major. 5.6.2 Compound and derived adjectives In some cases, Hungarian compound adjectives nicely correspond to English compound adjectives: háromlábú szék — a three-legged chair kétcsövű puska — a double-barrelled gun háromnapos konferencia — a three-day conference (Note the absence of the plural in day in the last example.) In most cases, however, a prepositional phrase postmodifier will be used: pirosszemü nyuszi — a rabbit with a pink eye esernyös ferfi — aman with an umbrella nagy fontosságú bejelentés — a statement of great importance In some cases, Hungarian compound adjectives may correspond to both a compound adjective and a prepositional phrase postmodifier: bozontos farkú mókus — a bushy-tailed sguirrel; — a squirrel with a bushy tail Hungarian derived adjectives and even compound nouns often correspond to premodifying nouns or prepositional phrase postmodifiers in English: anyagi kar — property damage / damage to property esökär - rain damage / damage (done) by rain + 81 *
