The Structure of the Topic Field in Hungarian
Anikó Lipták · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2011
This article takes a close look at topic constituents in Hungarian concerning their use, function and structural properties.It shows that on the basis of meaning differences, intonation and lexical marking, three types of topics can be teased apart: ordinary non-contrastive topics and two types of contrastive topics.While these three types are distinct from each other in many respects, syntactically they are embodied by the same movement process.When it comes to placement, the three types occupy two specialized projections corresponding to these two types: that hosting ordinary topics and that hosting contrastive ones.This result compared to Italian indicates that languages differ in the typology of topics and structural properties of their left periphery.