Word order and focusing effects in the memory representation of Hungarian sentences

In two acoustic sentence recognition experiments the relative importance of recognition times (0 to 40 seconds) and relationships between the target sentence and test sentences were varied. Hungarian promised to be a good testing ground for traditional theories that claim that while form is readily forgotten, sentence meaning is preserved. In Hungarian, the informational structure of sentences allows for clear contrasts between neutral and meaning-related order variations. In the stimulus material, target sentences were compared in recognition scores with identical, neutral word order, paraphrased, and focused sentence pairs. The results partly support our starting hypotheses, but partly show that the intricacies of Hungarian sentential syntax call for a more reserved and more carefully qualified expression of the initial proposals of Sachs (1967) and Johnson-Laird and Stevenson (1970). Focused sentences are clearly contrasted with non-focused initial targets even after 40 seconds. It seems that the information structure of Hungarian sentences is somehow maintained in the long-term memory system. In accordance with the classical results, meaning-neutral word order variations are misrecognized in about 60 per cent after 16 seconds already. Contrary to our hypothesis, even after 40 seconds, paraphrases were correctly recognized more than 60 per cent of the time. Thus, to clarify memorial paraphrase equivalence to cross-linguistic validity, more types of sentential paraphrases should be compared. The study supports the main ideas underlying the experiments: the informational structure of the Hungarian sentence seems to be retained in long-term memory, unlike neutral word order variations. This finding calls for a more detailed study with more varied stimulus materials to clarify some further issues of what is ‘form’ and what is ‘meaning’ for the memory system

Egy rejtett világ fölfedezése – bevezetés a társasnyelvészetbe

Szép kiállású keménykötéses könyvet tart kezében az olvasó, a címlapon világítótoronnyal. Erről a szociolingvisztikában jártas olvasónak eszébe juthat William Labov Martha’s Vineyard szigetén (Massachusetts, USA) végzett vizsgálata (a könyvben: 232–234. o.), a ’lighthouse’ szó ugyanis tartalmazza azokat a kettőshangzókat, amelyeket a szigetiek zártabban ejtettek, mint az oda látogató turisták. Másoknak a világítótorony arra utalhat, hogy ez a könyv – mint egy világítótorony – iránymutatás a határtalan nyelv megismeréséhez

Honfoglalók és a Szeged környéki nyelvjárás Dugonics András Etelkájában

The first Hungarian novel, András Dugonics’s „Etelka” was a very popular novel at the end of the 18th century, because its historical background was the time of the Hungarian conquest. Its main stylistic feature is that the language of the novel is full of phrasemes and regionalisms, especially local folk phraseology of Szeged. The third edition was rewritten by Dugonics in Szeged dialect although the regional speech was not accepted in literature at that time, because standardisation had already begun. Even though the language of the third edition of the novel is characterised by the main feature of the Szeged dialect (e.g. standard e: dialectal ö in certain syllables, köröszt vs. standard kereszt ‘cross’), we do not find any other dialectal features in the language of the novel. In this paper I demonstrate, that there is a difference between the narratives and the dialogues in the use of dialectal features

Vámbéry és a magyar-török rokonság

Im zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhundert gibt es eine Discussion über den Ursprung der ungarischen Sprache zwischen Vámbéry und Budenz und Hunfalvy. Vámbéry stellte, dass das Ungarische mit der türkischen Sprache verwandt ist. Die Discussion ging mit Vámbérys Niederlage. Danach wird in der Wissenschaftgeschichten Vámbéry als einen Dilettant vorgestellt. Békés Vera wies darauf hin, dass es am Ende der 19. Jahrhundert in die Sprachwissenschaft eine Paradigmwechsel war. Seit damals wissen wir, dass der Ursprung der Sprache und des Volkes verschieden sein kann.Die oben genannte Discussion und die Paradigmwechsel geschieht in derselben Zeit, aber unabhängig voneinander. Das Term Verwandschaft hatte früher die Bedeutung: Ähnlichkeit (lat. Affinitás). Nach der Paradigmwechsel bedeutete aber das Wort Verwandschaft: die zwei Sache hat gleicher/derselben Ursprung. In diesen Artikel ich versuche zu beweisen, dass Vámbéry das Wort Verwandschaft in beide Bedeutung nutzte. Deshalb konnten seine Gegner ihn nicht verstehen. Die ungarische Sprache und das ungarischen Volks kann der türkischen Sprache und dem türkiscen Volk ähnlich, also verwandt sein