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HUNGARIAN-ENGLISH LEXICAL CONTRASTS
7.5.4.4 Abbreviation of compounds and word combinations
In English, there is a tendency to abbreviate compounds and word combina¬
tions to a single element, especially when they occur repeatedly. Ihe result is
polysemy of the remaining element: gnome may mean gnome (“an ageless and
often deformed dwarf of folklore who lives in the earth and usually guards
treasure”; Merriam-Webster) or garden gnome (“lawn ornament figurines of
small humanoid creatures”; Wikipedia). The phrase remote control is abbrevi¬
ated to remote. The effect of this difference is similar to those described above.
In general, we may say that most of the differences between the lexical systems
of English and Hungarian are to a large extent related to motivational differ¬
ences. For example, in using words in a new meaning, Hungarian tends to add
a suffix or create a compound, while English may continue to use the same word
without any formal change. In other words, transfer of meaning in Hungarian
receives overt marking much earlier than in English, which tends to use the
same form with multiple meanings. Consider the examples in Table 13:
Table 13. Transfer of meaning in English and Hungarian words
Basic spatial sense Transferred sense
hosszú long hosszadalmas long, longish,
lengthy
széles wide széleskörű wide(spread)
szűk narrow szűkös narrow; meggre,
inadeguate
magas high magasságos high
mély deep mélységes deep
sekély shallow sekélyes shallow
könnyű light könnyelmű light
7.5.4.5 False cognates
There are many cognate words in English and Hungarian, i.e., words that are
formally similar and have the same origin. If their meanings are the same, we
may rely on positive transfer, and they will be easy to learn:
doktor — doctor, forma — form, motivdcié — motivation, absztrakt —
abstract etc.
False cognates are cognates whose meaning is different in L1 and L2, or which,
in addition to the same meaning, have meanings not shared by both the L1
and the L2 word. Having the same form, they appear to be transferable, but in
many cases they mislead learners. Table 14 contains a list of English-Hungar¬
ian and Hungarian—English false cognates.
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