Acta Linguistica Hungarica
Volume/Issue:
Volume 53: Issue 2-3
Topic, logical subject and sentence structure in Hungarian
Author:
Zsuzsanna Gécseg University of Szeged Department of French Language and Literature Egyetem utca 2. H--6722 Szeged Hungary

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Pages:
139–174
Online Publication Date:
06 Jun 2006
Publication Date:
01 Jun 2006
Article Category:
Research Article
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1556/aling.53.2006.2-3.3
Keywords:
topic; logical subject; word order; thetic judgment; categorical judgment
Full access

This paper investigates the "discourse-configurationality" hypothesis in Hungarian, based on the current assumption that Hungarian sentence structure is largely determined by information structure. It argues for the necessity of differentiating between the notion of topic, defined on a pragmatic level with respect to possible contexts, and the notion of logical subject, defined on a decontextualized logico-semantic level. On the basis of the distinction between these two levels of sentence analysis, Hungarian should be taken as a logical subject-prominent language rather than a topic-prominent one. As for the so-called contrastive topic in Hungarian, only a subclass of contrastive topic expressions meets the topicality conditions established in this paper on a pragmatic ground, and other types of contrastive topic expressions, namely those that can hardly be differentiated from ordinary topics, display the properties of logical subjects rather than topics.

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Cover Acta Linguistica Hungarica
Acta Linguistica Hungarica
Print ISSN:
1216-8076
Online ISSN:
1588-2624

Editors

Editor(s)-in-Chief: Katalin É. Kiss,
Ferenc Kiefer

Editor: Éva Dékány

Technical Editor: Zoltán G. Kiss

Review Editor: Beáta Gyuris

Editorial Board

  • Anne Abeillé
  • Željko Bošković
  • Marcel den Dikken
  • Hans-Martin Gärtner
  • Elly van Gelderen
  • Anders Holmberg
  • Katarzyna Jaszczolt
  • István Kenesei
  • Anikó Lipták
  • Katalin Mády
  • Gereon Müller
  • Csaba Pléh
  • Giampaolo Salvi
  • Irina Sekerina
  • Péter Siptár
  • Gregory Stump
  • Peter Svenonius
  • Anne Tamm
  • Akira Watanabe
  • Jeroen van de Weijer

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Acta Linguistica Hungarica
Language English
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Year of
Foundation		 1951
Publication
Programme		 changed title
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Founder Magyar Tudományos Akadémia  
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Address		 H-1051 Budapest, Hungary, Széchenyi István tér 9.
Publisher Akadémiai Kiadó
Publisher's
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ISSN 1216-8076 (Print)
ISSN 1588-2624 (Online)

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