Acta Linguistica Hungarica, Vol. 58 (4), pp. 417–447 (2011) DOI: 10.1556/ALing.58.2011.4.3 ENVIRONMENTAL COPULA CONSTRUCTIONS IN HUNGARIAN * EDITH KÁDÁR Department of Hungarian and General Linguistics Babeş-Bolyai University str. Horea nr. 31. 400202 Cluj-Napoca Romania ekadar@flash.ro Abstract: In this paper I examine the behaviour of Hungarian copular environmental con- structions, and I demonstrate that they cannot be treated on a par with weather verbs (as suggested in the literature). While the latter may have a quasi-argumental subject, treating the former along the same lines would also mean to analyse the NP/AP featuring in these constructions as a predicate nominal/adjective. A parallel analysis of sentences involving nominal predication, environmental copular constructions and sentences with undisputable NP-subjects shows that environmental constructions pattern with the latter. I discuss and weigh the subject properties and the predicate properties of the nominal part of the con- struction, surveying all the evidence that has emerged in the literature, and adding some further arguments. The dual behaviour of the nominal/adjectival part of atmospheric copular constructions is argued to come from their predicative content combined with their status as syntactic subjects. For what appears to be an AP + VAN ‘be’ type of environmental copular construction, an Adj → N conversion analysis is proposed, and an alternative analysis with the AP being the modifier of an abstract null noun is also mentioned. Keywords: copular environmental construction, verbal copula, predicational sentence, syn- tactic subject, conversion * The research reported here was supported by project no. TS049873 of the Hun- garian National Scientific Research Fund (OTKA). Special thanks are due to Katalin É. Kiss, András Komlósy and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable remarks on earlier versions of this paper. All remaining errors are mine. 1216–8076/$ 20.00 © 2011 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest