Word Order in Hungarian : The Syntax of A¯-positions
ISBN: 9789027299222
Platform/Publisher: Ebook Central / John Benjamins Publishing Company
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Limited; Download: 7 Days at a Time
Subjects: Language/ Linguistics;

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.


hidden image for function call