This article demonstrates that abessive PPs impose the same type of definiteness restriction on their complements that existential predicates impose on their subjects. The definiteness effect (DE) in PPs is accounted for in the framework of the DE theory of Szabolcsi ( 1986a , b , 1992 ), who derives the DE from the incompatibility of a presuppositional subject and a logical predicate of existence that is present in a wide class of predicates (including verbs meaning ‘(cause to) come to exist in a particular fashion’ and nominal predicates meaning ‘(non)existence at a particular location’). The analysis points out this predicate of existence in the small clause complements of abessive Ps.

The article argues that a particular implementation of phase theory makes it possible to account for seemingly contradictory facts of Hungarian that no other framework has been able to handle. Namely, (a) Hungarian word order is fixed preverbally and free postverbally. The fixed word order of a string is liberated when it is crossed by V-movement. (b) Grammatical phenomena sensitive to c-command provide evidence of both configurationality and nonconfigurationality. The proposal is based on the following assumptions: The derivation of the Hungarian sentence involves a lexical phase (PredP) and a functional phase (a TP or a FocP), both headed by the raised V. When the functional phase is constructed, the silent lower copies of the V and their projections are deleted, which results in the flattening of the phasal domain. Grammatical phenomena indicative of a hierarchical structure are interpreted on the hierarchical domain of the lexical phase, whereas those indicative of a flat structure are interpreted on the flattened domain of the functional phase. The sister constituents of the flattened domain of the functional phase can be linearized in a free order in PF.