Word Order in Hungarian
Author | : Genoveva Puskás |
Publisher | : John Benjamins Publishing |
Total Pages | : 416 |
Release | : 2000-08-15 |
ISBN-10 | : 9789027299222 |
ISBN-13 | : 9027299226 |
Rating | : 4/5 (22 Downloads) |
Book excerpt: Hungarian word-order is characterized by large scale preposing of constituents to sentence-initial positions. This study examines systematically the elements which occur in the left periphery. Focal, wh- and negative operators which have scope over the whole sentence must appear in the left periphery overtly; topicalized elements precede the scope operators and appear in an organized system as well. The author proposes that the structure of the Hungarian sentence comprises a rich set of left-peripheral functional projections, organized into sub-systems, like the Scope field and the Topic field. On the basis of the structure of Hungarian, the study proposes to consider these sub-systems as being in turn split, that is hierarchically organized into specific functional projections. The study also examines the well-formedness conditions linked to multiple preposing. It is shown that the various well-formedness criteria apply overtly in Hungarian. This enables to make a direct link between the scope properties of affective operators and the articulated structure of the left periphery.