[#DuolingoForumGems originally posted on 2016-11-04 on the Duolingo Hungarian for English speakers forum by vvsey ] https://archive.ph/SxuIM
On Emphasis and Word Order in Hungarian
The above is the title of a book (Kiefer, 1967). I found it while researching a question posted in the "Hungarian from English" course.
Emphasis and, especially, word order, definitely seem to be one of the major topics in the discussions all over the course. While trying to answer some of the questions learners posted, I established my own theory on the topic. It seems to be standing the test of times. Here are the main points:
- Words at the front of a sentence tend to have emphasis.
- Words (or phrases) in front of a verb (root) are emphasized. This seems to be the most emphasized position.
- Verbs without preverbs (prefixes) are not particularly emphasized and do not provide as much (syntactic) emphasis to the word or phrase in front of them as a verb with a preverb would do. That is, the emphasis is not coded in the sentence, most of it comes from semantics, intonation. (Update: please see further explanation of this in the comments below, in reply to Bastette54's question.)
- Verbs with preverbs attached are themselves emphasized.
- Verbs with preverbs detached (preverb placed after the verb) are a clear indication that the word or phrase in front of them is emphasized. This is probably the most emphasized construction.
These are the general rules as I found. There are special cases, questions, negation, sub clauses, etc., which can still more or less be explained with the above rules. They can be viewed as special cases of the above rules. For example, a question with a question word:
"Ki nyitotta ki az ajtót?" - "Who opened the door?" - literally: Who opened out the door?
- The main emphasis in a question like this is clearly on the question word itself. "Who?". "Ki?".
- Question words must be immediately followed by the verb - seems to be an established rule.
- Which happens to coincide with the above rule that the word in front of a verb gets the emphasis.
- Moreover, if that verb happens to have a preverb, it most definitely will have to split, placing the preverb out of the way, behind the verb.
The pieces all fall into place.
I continue to apply these rules for any kind of sentence in the course, and they seem to work. Sometimes they may be hidden under several layers of distraction but they are always there.
So, these are my observations. And now I found this book. I have not read it. I have only read a few excerpts available online. But from what I have read, it seems to provide a very thorough, and scientific, analysis of Hungarian word order and emphasis. Of course, it goes much deeper than my superficial little rules. And even though it was written by a professor of linguistics, a great deal of it is easy to understand to anyone (Hey, if I can understand it, anyone can).
So, as a bottom line, I can fully recommend this book to anyone who wants to acquire a deeper understanding of Hungarian word order and emphasis. Even if you just read the few pages that are available online, you might achieve some enlightenment. Good luck!
On Emphasis and Word Order in Hungarian - by Ferenc Kiefer, 1967
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Comment by Bastette54:
I'm confused about this: "Verbs without preverbs (prefixes) are not particularly emphasized and do not provide as much (syntactic) emphasis to the word or phrase in front of them as a verb with a preverb would do."
I thought that if you want to emphasize something (other than the verb itself), you put it directly in front of the verb. And if there's a preverb, it's detached and placed after the verb. If you keep the preverb attached in front, then the verb itself is emphasized.
That's what I've heard many times in this course. But what you wrote sounds like the opposite. It sounds like you're saying that a verb without a prefix does not provide any special emphasis to the word/phrase in front of it. Am I misunderstanding something? I'm not sure what "semantic" emphasis means, maybe that's the key?
Comment by vvsey:
Thanks for the question. Obviously I wrote this article some time ago, hopefully I can explain myself a little better now. I learned a lot myself along the way.
The good news is, what I wrote still stands, and it is NOT in opposition with what you heard many times in the course. Let me see if I can make it clearer now:
Yes, there is an emphasized position in front of the verb, and yes, it is the most emphasized position in a sentence. If you place a word in that position, it will be emphasized.
But!
But that position is not necessarily occupied!
What does it mean? It does not mean that there will be an empty hole in the sentence. So, how can it be? One obvious way is if the verb is the first word in the sentence. There is nothing in front of it. But you can have a word in front of the verb, still not taking the emphasized position. It is like that word "opts out" of being emphasized. Even if it is in front of the verb, it does not want any special attention, thank you very much. It is possible. And that is what I meant here. That is when we can say that, even though there are words in front of the verb, they are not taking the emphasis.
And here is where the preverb has an important role!
Because if there is a preverb involved, whether it is in front, attached, or behind the verb, the emphasized position is definitely taken. It is kind of hard-coded in the sentence. Let't take an example:
"Kati megírja a levelet." - Kati writes the letter.
"Megírja" is a verb with a preverb: "meg-írja".
The preverb is attached to the verb, it definitely takes the emphasis:
"Kati MEGÍRJA a levelet."
You cannot emphasize it differently. The emphasis is "hard-coded" on the verb.
If you want to emphasize Kati, you have to change the sentence. You have to detach the preverb and place it in the back:
"Kati írja meg a levelet." - It is Kati who writes the letter.
There is a preverb, it is detached and placed after the verb. The emphasis is "hard-coded" on the word in front of the verb:
"KATI írja meg a levelet."
You cannot emphasize it differently. The emphasis is "hard-coded" on the word in front of the verb.
So, when we have a preverb, it is very clear where the emphasis lies.
But what if we do not have a preverb???
That is when we have more freedom!
"Kati írja a levelet." - Kati writes the letter.
What is being emphasized here? We have a choice:
It can be "Kati", being in front of the verb, taking the emphasized position
Or it can be that even though "Kati" is in front of the verb, the emphasized position is actually not used, this is just a neutral sentence, with a little emphasis on the verb.
So, it can be either of these two:
"KATI írja a levelet." - It is Kati who writes the letter.
"Kati írja a levelet." - Kati writes the letter.
So, this second version is just a neutral sentence, with the well-known S-V-O word order.
If I pose questions to these sentences, it may be even clearer:
"Ki írja a levelet?" - Who writes the letter?
"KATI írja a levelet" - Kati does. KATI writes the letter.
Mit csinál Kati? - What does Kati do? (Or What is Kati doing?)
"Kati írja a levelet." - Kati writes the letter.
You could even have a very different question, asking about Kati in general: "Have you seen Kati? Where is Kati? I haven't seen her since 9 o'clock!"
"Kati írja a levelet." - Kati is writing the letter. That's why she's not showing herself, she is busy writing the letter. This is just a neutral sentence, with the potentially emphasized position not utilized, even though there is a word in front of the verb.
So that is what I meant by this all. When there is no preverb, the emphasis is not "hard-coded" in the sentence. It is up to implementation, up to intonation, or semantics, to declare where the emphasis actually is. While when there is a preverb involved, it is much more well-defined.
Hope this made it a bit clearer for you.
One more thing I would like to add is that this ambiguity probably happens mostly when the subject is in front of the verb without a preverb. Because the neutral word order happens to be generally S-V-O, it can either be a neutral sentence or one where the subject is actually emphasized. It is even more clear when there is nothing else but a subject and a verb in a sentence (called a "tőmondat" in Hungarian):
"A kutya ugat." - The dog barks.
"A macska nyávog." - The cat meows.
"Az oroszlán bömböl." - The lion roars.
These are most likely just neutral sentences, without particular emphasis on the subject. They follow the neutral word order. The subjects may or may not be emphasized.
But once we insert another word in front of the verb, it will most probably be emphasized:
"A kutya gyakran ugat." - The dog often barks.
"A macska nem nyávog." - The cat does not meow.
"Az oroszlán ritkán bömböl." - The lion seldom roars.
There are several great articles on Hungarian in Wikipedia, here's one I recommend, especially the grammar section:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_language#Grammar
But the whole article is worth reading.
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Word order posts by vvsey:
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