On the synchrony and diachrony of grammaticalized result phrases in Hungarian

The aim of this paper is to argue for an extended typology of Hungarian result phrases. Besides the canonical sublative-marked result phrases in Hungarian, there is also a subclass of translative-marked result phrases that can have two different functions even though their forms are syncretized. I argue that these two interpretations are made possible due to different underlying syntactic structures. On one interpretation these RPs can have a transparent resultative meaning, but they may also be interpreted as adverbial, intensifying elements. With my syntactic analysis, I aim to draw a parallel between the syntax of the two kinds of translative result phrases and the syntax of lexical and superlexical prefixes in Slavic languages as put forth by Svenonius (2004). Regarding the diachronic development of Hungarian superlexical RPs, I also show with historical and contemporary corpus data that some superlexical RPs show a higher level of grammaticalization than others, which is evidenced by their higher level of productivity.