Topic, logical subject and sentence structure in Hungarian

Gécseg, Zsuzsanna (2006) Topic, logical subject and sentence structure in Hungarian. Acta Linguistica Hungarica, 53 (2-3). pp. 139-174. ISSN 1216-8076

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Abstract

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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