Topic and focus : two structural positions associated with logical functionsin the left periphery of the Hungarian sentence

The paper explicates the notions of topic, contrastive topic, and focus as used in the analysis of Hungarian. Based on distributional criteria, topic and focus are claimed to represent distinct structural positions in the left periphery of the Hungarian sentence, associated with logical rather than discourse functions. The topic is interpreted as the logical subject of predication. The focus is analyzed as a derived main predicate, specifying the referential content of the set denoted by the backgrounded post-focus section of the sentence. The exhaustivity associated with the focus and the existential presupposition associated with the background are shown to be properties following from their specificational predication relation

The Inverse Agreement Constraint in Uralic languages

The paper aims to answer the question why object–verb agreement is blocked in Hungarian, Tundra Nenets, Selkup, and Nganasan if the object is a first or second person pronoun. Based on Dalrymple & Nikolaeva (2011), it is argued that object–verb agreement serves (or served historically) to mark the secondary topic status of the object. The gaps in object-verb agreement can be derived from the Inverse Agreement Constraint, a formal, semantically unmotivated constraint observed by Comrie (1980) in Chukchee, Koryak and Kamchadal, forbidding object-verb agreement if the object is more ʻanimate’ than the subject: The paper claims that the Inverse Agreement Constraint is a constraint on information structure. What it requires is that a secondary topic be less topical than the primary topic. An object more topical than the primary topic can only figure as a focus. A version of the constraint can also explain why Hungarian first and second person objects have no accusative suffix, and why accusative marking is optional in the case of objects having a first or second person possessor

Sequence of multipolar transitions: Scenarios for URu2Si2

d- and f-shells support a large number of local degrees of freedom: dipoles, quadrupoles, octupoles, hexadecapoles, etc. Usually, the ordering of any multipole component leaves the system sufficiently symmetrical to allow a second symmetry breaking transition. Assuming that a second continuous phase transition occurs, we classify the possibilities. We construct the symmetry group of the first ordered phase, and then re-classify the order parameters in the new symmetry. While this is straightforward for dipole or quadrupole order, it is less familiar for octupole order. We give a group theoretical analysis, and some illustrative mean field calculations, for the hypothetical case when a second ordering transition modifies the primary T(xyz) octupolar ordering in a tetragonal system like URu2Si2. If quadrupoles appear in the second phase transition, they must be accompanied by a time-reversal-odd multipole as an induced order parameter. For O(xy), O(zx), or O(yz) quadrupoles, this would be one of the components of J, which should be easy either to check or to rule out. However, a pre-existing octupolar symmetry can also be broken by a transition to a new octupole--hexadecapole order, or by a combination of O(22) quadrupole and triakontadipole order. It is interesting to notice that if recent NQR results (Saitoh et al, 2005) on URu2Si2 are interpreted as a hint that the onset of octupolar hidden order at T0=17K is followed by quadrupolar ordering at T* = 13.5K, this sequence of events may fit several of the scenarios found in our general classification scheme. However, we have to await further evidence showing that the NQR anomalies at T* = 13.5K are associated with an equilibrium phase transition.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures, latex, uses ptptex.cls, accepted for publication in the Proceedings of YKIS2004 on the "Physics of Strongly Correlated Electron Systems" (Kyoto, November 2004) (to appear in Progr. Theor. Phys. Suppl.). Parts of the discussion revise

A pioneering theory of information structure

The paper deals with Samuel Brassai, a 19th-century Hungarian linguist and polyhistor, who was the first in the world to discover the role of information structure in the syntactic organization of the sentence. Preparing to describe Hungarian syntax, he first wanted to establish the universal and typical characteristics of the sentence on the basis of a number of genetically unrelated languages. The universal structure he identified is essentially the topic-comment structure (called inchoativum-bulk articulation by him). French-type languages realize a constrained version of this universal structure, requiring the topicalization of the grammatical subject. In Hungarian, the initial position of the comment is a focus (in his terminology: attribute ) position. His Hungarian sentence model is a forerunner of today’s generative sentence structure

A negative cycle in 12th-15th-century Hungarian

This paper analyzes the changes having taken place in the syntax of negation in 12-15th century Hungarian. It points out a change in the position of the negative particle, and shows it to be related to the change of basic word order from ’SOV’ to ’TopFocVX*’. The central topic of the paper is a negative cycle induced by the morphological fusion of the negative particle with different types of indefinites in the scope of negation. The opaqueness of the resulting morphological complexes necessitated the reintroduction of negation into sentences with indefinites, and led to the reinterpretation of negative indefinites as expressions with no negative force, participating in negative concord. The newly introduced negative particle, though morphologically identical with the negative particle that was input to the fusion with indefinites, assumed a different syntactic status in the new ’TopFocVX*’ sentence structure; it acted as a functional head, eliciting verb movement. The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 provides a background by surveying the syntax of negation in present-day Hungarian. Section 3 describes the structural positions of the negative particle in Old Hungarian, and section 4 analyzes the syntax of Old Hungarian negative indefinite noun phrases and pronouns. Both sections point out an archaic pattern surviving from Proto-Hungarian, as well as a new variant. Section 5 attempts to reconstruct the diachronic process emerging from the declining and novel patterns of negation in 12-15th century Hungarian documents

Kézikönyv a filozófiáról

Az Akadémiai Kiadónál 2007 őszén megjelent Filozófiakézikönyv az elmúlt évek legszínvonalasabb összegző szakfilozófiai publikációja. A kiadvánnyal régi adósságát törleszti a honi filozófus tudóstársadalom. Az igen terjedelmesre sikeredett, teljességre törekvő kötet tíz nagy fejezetben mutatja be a filozófiatörténet fontosabb korszakait az ókortól egészen napjaink filozófiai irányzataiig, a magyar filozófiatörténet ismertetését is beleértve. A kötet főszerkesztője Boros Gábor, az ELTE Újkori és Jelenkori Filozófia Tanszékének vezetője; ez a tény már egymagában biztosíték a kötet értékére. Boros Gábor elsősorban a korábban megjelent Descartes- és Spinoza-monográfiák révén lehet ismerős az olvasók számár