Discourse meets grammar (original) (raw)

A new look at information structure in Hungarian

Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 2009

It is a commonly accepted view in the Hungarian linguistic literature that sentence structure is determined by information structure, viewed as a phrase structure theoretic interpretation of the topic–comment articulation of the sentence. There is a designated topic position at the left edge of the sentence, namely SpecTopP, hosting constituents that are claimed to be in a predicative relation with the rest of the sentence. On this view, topic–comment and logical subject–logical predicate are considered to be synonymous notions. We argue that the notion of topic as used in the Hungarian literature poses some serious problems, which can only be eliminated if the pragmatic aspects of topichood are separated from its semantic function entailing the development of a two-level approach to information structure. Topic and logical subject belong to two different levels with topic being an essentially pragmatic notion and logical subject being a syntactico-semantic notion. On this analysis the basic syntactic structure of the Hungarian sentence is determined by the articulation “logical subject–logical predicate” rather than by the articulation “topic-comment”. The proposed analysis has important typological consequences.

Another look at the syntax of Hungarian verbal particles

Jezikoslovlje, 2010

The Hungarian verbal particle, this tiny function (grammatical) word causes a lot of headache to linguists to this day. One of the most difficult questions refers to its structural position. The most recent syntactic analysis (É. Kiss 2006, 2008) assumes that the Hungarian verbal particle is inserted in postverbal argument (complement) position because its role is similar to that of the resultative phrases, i.e. sublative case-marked NPs. This approach however, fails to explain sentences containing both verbal particles and case-marked NPs, which is a significant failure. For that very reason I argue against inserting the verbal particle in the abovementioned position and present an alternative syntactic analysis which is able to account for sentences containing verbal particle and NP Case .

The evolution of functional left peripheries in Hungarian syntax ed. by Katalin É. Kiss

Language, 2016

This is the first English language book on Hungarian Hungarian diachronic syntax in the generative framework. It summarizes the outstanding achievements of a four-year OTKA (Hungarian Scientific Research Fund) project on diachronic syntax of Hungarian, carried out at the Research Institute for Linguistics under the leadership of Katalin É. Kiss. The book is a somewhat more concise version of the Hungarian publication É. Kiss (2014), adapted to an international readership. The book provides an empirical overview of the syntactic changes in Hungarian covering the following five major areas: basic sentence structure, DP structure, quantification, PP structure and subordination. The book's title is slightly misleading as the volume is not explicitly about the functional left periphery in all the above areas, but rather about the development of functional material (in the left periphery or elsewhere) that is closely linked to historical change and grammaticalization. The diachronic data studied are texts originating between the end of the 12 th century and the end of the 16 th century, from the second half of the Old Hungarian period (which roughly correspond to six centuries between c. 900 and 1500) and the beginning of the Middle Hungarian era that followed it. In this period, the most important documents comprise 47 handwritten codices (Old Hungarian) and printed books in various genres (Middle Hungarian). These texts were annotated and entered into a corpus built for the project (currently available for the Hungarian speaking audience at http://oldhungariancorpus.nytud.hu). The building of the corpus itself was a massive undertaking, the details of which (the process of digitalization, problems of character recognition, text encoding, annotation, etc.) are documented by Eszter Simon in the appendix to the volume. The five chapters detailing historical change in Hungarian share the same methodology. The reconstruction of the Proto-Hungarian language (with no surviving documents) is based on the ∫-curve method (Croft 2000): new constructions first spread slowly, then fast, then slowly again, while old constructions are ousted following the reverse pattern. Using the backward extension of these curves, as well as comparisons with the Ob-Ugric sister languages Khanti and Mansi, the research established several features of Proto-Hungarian and Old/Middle Hungarian. The following gives a brief summary of the contents of the chapters. Chapter 1 by Katalin É. Kiss argues that Hungarian has changed from an SOV to an SVO language, a change that went hand in hand with the disappearance of unmarked objects and the appearance of the modern Hungarian left periphery. Possibly, rightward dislocated phrases came to be reanalyzed as base-generated arguments, bringing about the reanalysis of preverbal elements as A-bar constituents, resulting in a Topic-Focus-V-X order (rather than, strictly speaking, SVO). The change must have taken place before the start of the Old Hungarian period as the 50 clauses of the first Old Hungarian document already utilize every clausal functional projection that is attested in Modern Hungarian. Although the head final nature of Proto-Hungarian is argued for on the basis of evidence that VP, TP, and CP were all head final in that period, the role of Tense is however neglected throughout in the change from SOV to the Old Hungarian structure. Note that there is precious little on this topic even in the highly relevant chapter on finite and nonfinite subordination apart from an important, though rather brief, observation, claiming that "Old

What is the function of the verbal particle in Hungarian

Suvremena lingvistika, 2009

In my paper I am discussing the newest analysis of verbal particles (É. Kiss, Katalin 2006. The function and the syntax of the verbal particle. In É. Kiss, Katalin ed., 2006. Event structure and the Left Periphery. Dordrecht: Springer.) which suggest that these function morphemes are to be analyzed as secondary predicates. My goal is to show, this approach should be revisited: by examining the verbal particles with regard to Hungarian secondary resultative predication we see that the role assigned to the verbal particle is not secondary predication, but mere delimitation. Further, it will become obvious that resultative phrases are not the phrasal counterparts of verbal particles.

What are we Speaking of? A New Perspective on the Post-verbal Field in Hungarian

Hungarian Studies Yearbook

Hungarian displays a characteristic syntax, that within the generative approach was called non-configurational. For this reason its description is at least unusual, and it cannot be taught with the same formal concepts used for most of the other European languages. Functional approaches, with Functional Discourse Grammar among them, seem to be especially useful in both describing and teaching Hungarian, because they allow the interplay between pragmatics, syntax and semantics. This article sets the most important traditional assumptions about Hungarian syntax within the functional approach, concentrating on issues with word order. It is suggested that the so-called post-verbal field is very important. The central claim is that in a Hungarian sentence not only is the context of the expression recognized, given by the Topic and a possible Focus of communication, but also a distinct target of our discourse: a constituent signalling what we are speaking of that facilitates the making of...

Sentence-Types, Discourse Particles and Intonation in Hungarian

2019

The paper looks at the Hungarian particle ugye, which has traditionally been classified as an interrogative particle but can also legitimately appear in declarative sentences in present-day Hungarian, and explores the possibility of assigning it a core interpretation that covers all of its uses and attributing apparent remaining differences between its meanings in the various sentence-types to intonation.

Constituency or dependency? Notes on Sámuel Brassai’s syntactic model of Hungarian.

2013

This paper addresses the question whether constituency (phrase structure) or dependency forms the backbone of Sámuel Brassai’s syntactic model of Hungarian. A Transylvanian linguist of the 19th century, Brassai is credited with pioneering studies on information structure, and regarded by some to have been a precursor to generative grammar (É. Kiss 2005, 2008a). One aspect of the latter interpretation is that Brassai’s model of Hungarian is seen to be constituency-based, and essentially identical with modern accounts proposed in a generative framework. While this interpretation is certainly legitimate, finding sufficient support in Brassai’s text, I will suggest that categorizing him as a phrase structure grammarian would be misleading. Putting his social network metaphor at the centre, I will argue that Brassai’s conceptualization of the clause clearly falls within the tradition of dependency rather than phrase structure grammar. The argument will rest on both Brassai’s general discussion of syntactic theory and specific details of his account of Hungarian word order.