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INTRODUCTION TO EUROPEAN PARTITIVES IN COMPARISON
In addition to the strategy whereby the element that stands for the subset bears
possessive marking that shows agreement with the superset (“subset-marking”,
as the subset is the locus of marking), Hungarian also has marking on the
element that corresponds to the superset (“superset-marking”, the locus of
marking is the superset). Superset-marking appears in the form of a case or an
adposition. This central strategy for encoding proper partitives is illustrated
in (1b). This superset-marking strategy is attested in most European languages,
Uralic included. Furthermore, in Uralic, another possessive structure links the
superset to the subset. This strategy is similar to the Dutch ervan or German
davon, which are composed of a pronominal and a prepositional part (it/them
+ of/from). The 3" person pronominal part, it/them forms a morphological
word with the prepositional part, of/from. In Hungarian, the pronominal part
may refer to more persons than only the third person. The pronominal part is
a possessive agreement marker that emerges on an adpositional base such as
“from (among)”, more specifically, on the postposition kéziil (as in from among
us). In all structured forms, the morphological element serves as a link between
the part and the whole. Thus, in Hungarian, altogether three main structures
and forms are available to express proper partitivity:
1) marking that appears on the element denoting the part (subset-marking,
as in egyik-iink ‘one of us'), see example (9a);
2) marking that appears on the element denoting the whole or the amount
(superset-marking, as in gyerekeim-bél ‘from among my children’), see
example (9b); and
3) providing an agreement marker on another relating entity, an adposition
(kéziil-iink ‘from among us’), see example (9c).
The first and the third of these strategies are possessive-based.
(9) Hungarian (Finno-Ugric, Ugric)
[Húsz diák vizsgázott le.]
twenty student take exam Pv
[‘Twenty students took the exam’]
a. Kettö-jük-kel beszeltem.
two-3PL-INS speak.PST.1SG
‘I spoke with two of them? (subset-marking)
b.E diakok közül kettő-vel beszéltem.
this student.pL from two-INs speak.PST.1sG
‘I spoke with two of these students’ (superset-marking)
c. Közül-ük ketté-vel beszéltem.
from-3PL two-INS speak.PST.1SG
‘I spoke with two of them? (agreement on relating entity)
s 19 c