Word Order in Hungarian

Abstract

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.

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