Long split Focus Constructions in Hungarian with a View on Speaker Variaton

Long Split Focus Constructions in Hungarian with a View on Speaker Variation Long focus movement in Hungarian (henceforth LUF, cf. (1)) has received much attention in the generative literature over the past decades (e.g. É. Kiss 1987, Lipták 1998). (1) ÚJ AUTÓTFocus mondott hogy vett. new car.ACC said.3SG that bought.3SG (S)he said that (s)he had bought a NEW CAR. Recent research (Gervain 2009, Den Dikken 2010) has argued that in addition to the movement derivation of the structure, long focus constructions may be derived by base-generating the focused NP in the matrix clause. In addition, the existence of speaker variation in the acceptance of long focus constructions has been tied to two speaker groups according to whether they accept the movement derivation or not.My research takes another set of related data, namely long focus constructions involving split bare NPs (henceforth LSF, cf. (2)), and argues for a double derivation of such structures: one in which the focused NP portion undergoes long-distance movement and one in which it does not. (2) AUTÓTFocus mondott hogy újat vett. car.ACC said.3SG that new.ACC bought.3SG (S)he said that (s)he had bought a new CAR. The central data come from two questionnaires, each filled out by over 80 native speakers. The results show that while there is speaker variaton concerning the different types of the construction, no consistent speaker groups can be distinguished. I propose to account for this fact by assuming that there are two derivations for these constructions (i.e. long-distance movement and base-generation) both of which are available in all native speakers grammar. This explains why some types of the structure are sensitive to constraints on movement while others are not. Chapter 1 introduces some basic facts about LSF and the primary issues that will be addressed in the context of long focus constructions, each of the subsequent chapters discusses a topic that brings us closer to the analysis of LSF. Chapter 2 first briefly situates Hungarian among the languages of the world and it discusses some properties of word order characteristic of discourse-configurational languages. Then it presents a basic overview of the structure of the simple clause in Hungarian. Finally, it provides some insight into three issues that return in later chapters, namely the structure of nominal phrases, object definiteness agreement and the structure of expletive-associate constructions (henceforth EA, cf. (3)) in Hungarian