Such-and-such demonstratives here and there – Positioning a particular coordinate construction within the system of Hungarian demonstratives

Abstract

Based on corpus data, this paper identifies demonstrative constructions not previously described in Hungarian grammars or linguistic descriptions. These constructions consist of pairs of nominal, adjectival, or adverbial demonstratives in various compound-like coordinate structures that display morphological parallelism. The paper focuses on the compound forms consisting of demonstratives in proximal–distal order, e.g. ez-az (lit. ’this-that’), ilyen-olyan (lit. ’of this kind-of that kind’), itt-ott (lit. ’here-there’). Their formal properties are inherited from the Hungarian echo-pair construction, as well as from a more general, cross-linguistically attested co-compound construction. In the case of demonstratives, the echo-pair structure is associated with a non-deictic meaning characterised by the semantic properties of ’indefiniteness’, ’plurality’, and ’diversity’. Following the Construction Grammar framework, the echo-pair demonstrative construction is situated within the system of Hungarian demonstratives, and its position in the Hungarian constructicon is also presented. Furthermore, drawing on a preliminary diachronic observation, an interpretation is proposed for the relationship between the asyndetic demonstrative echo-pairs and their syndetic formal variants (ez és az, ilyen meg olyan, itt és ott).