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INTRODUCTION TO EUROPEAN PARTITIVES IN COMPARISON
case-marked or unmarked) possessor, no inclusive reading emerges, cf. (18a),
but with the semantic agreement pattern, the interpretation is inclusive (18b).
(18) Hungarian (Finno-Ugric, Ugric)
a. Csak ketté-nk-nek volt siker-e.
only two-1PL-GEN be.PST.3SG success-35G
‘Only (the) two of us had success? (Speaker either included or not.)
b. Csak kettô-nk-nek volt siker-ünk.
only two-1PL-GEN be.PST.3SG success-1PL
‘Only the two of us had success! (Speaker included.)
Distinguishing inclusive subset-marked partitives via semantic agreement is
not unique to Hungarian.“ It must be emphasized, however, that the exact
conditions of this variation in Hungarian await further examination.
The other strategy that interacts with proper partitives in Hungarian on the
sentence level can be called subset omitting. The omission of the element that
stands for the subset, together with superset marking, is a means to create a
subtype of proper partitive constructions that formally coincide with what Falco
and Zamparelli call ‘bare partitives:*”’ In Hungarian, when not accompanied by
an overt subset, the elative-marked superset is reported to be as a “new kind”
of subject (19a) or object (19b) according to some authors.”
(19) Hungarian (Finno-Ugric, Ugric)
a.A kenyer-böl is — maradt.
the bread-ELA also remain.PST.3SG
‘Also, some of the bread remained?
b. A kenyer-böl is evett.
the bread-ELA also eat.PST.3SG
‘She ate also some of the bread?’
Interestingly, Mari shows no such tendency, since the omission of the subset
is not allowed (20).
(20) Mari (Finno-Ugric, Volgaic)
a. Tudo kinde gyc Sultys-ym koëk-yn.
she bread from piece-ACC eat-2PST.3SG
"She ate a piece of the bread!
4 For examples in Turkic, see Ekaterina Lyutikova: Person Agreement with Anaphors: Evidence
from Tatar, Languages, 8 (2023), 46. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8010046
12 Falco -— Zamparelli: Partitives, 5.
4 Bencédy et al.: A mai magyar nyelv, 233-234, 273, 315.
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