Focus in Hungarian

In simple terms, communicative focus is a kind of emphasis within a sentence. It is the part in a sentence that carries new or contrastive information.

Focus is marked in various ways in different languages. A very common focus marker in speech is stress. Hungarian, just like English, uses stress to mark sentence focus in speech. Hungarian, however, also uses word order as a focus marker. English syntax makes this much less possible because its word order primarily reflects grammatical relations (such as the subject–object relation). Hungarian, in contrast, has a rich morphology (suffixes) to reflect these relations, which allows word order to reflect something else: focus.

Consider the following Hungarian sentences, all of which may be expressed by a single English sentence (ie. without changing the syntax and just by stressing different words in speech): The hunter is chasing the lion.

To understand focus, a simple principle may be applied: a statement with a specific focus answers a specific question. This explains the difference between the sentences above. They answer three different questions according to their foci:

• Question 1: What is happening? – Mi történik?
• Question 2: What is the hunter chasing? – Mit üldöz a vadász?
• Question 3: Who is chasing the lion? – Ki üldözi az oroszlánt?

Sentences 1 and 2 as well as 5 and 6 answer Question 1, which is a general question and so there is no specific focus in these sentences, or one might say the focus is on the action üldözi – chasing. Sentence 3 answers Question 2, and the focus is on az oroszlánt – the lion. Finally, Sentence 4 answers Question 3, and the focus is on a vadász – the hunter.

Another way to define focus is to say it is used to identify something among a set of things, or to contrast something with all other members of the set. For example, Sentence 3 asserts that it is the lion that the hunter is chasing, and not an elephant or some other animal. It identifies the lion in the set of possible animals a hunter could possibly chase. Similarly, the main message of Sentence 4 is this: it is the hunter that is chasing the lion, not another person or a vulture etc. It identifies the hunter in contrast with anyone or anything else that could possibly chase the lion. In this sense, focus is said to be contrastive.

As you can see, the word order in Hungarian sentences is changed according to the speaker’s communicative intention, that is, according to what the speaker wants to point out with the sentence. It is a widespread misconception that Hungarian has a free word order. In fact, Hungarian word order must reflect the information structure of the sentence, distinguishing the emphatic part, which carries new information, from the rest, which conveys little or no new information.

You may have noticed that there is actually some freedom to the word order, as Sentence 1, 2, 5 and 6 have the same communicative intention or same focus. More on that later.

English sentences usually have end focus, which means that the emphatic part is closer to the end of the sentence. Fronting and inversion are common syntactic techniques in English to move focus to the beginning of a sentence (although not always without a change in stylistic value).

Hungarian focus is different. The most important difference is that the word order must reflect communicative focus. This is integral to Hungarian syntax. Another difference in Hungarian is the position of focus: it is neither at the beginning, nor at the end of the sentence, but it has a well-defined position, as described below.

A sentence can be structurally divided into two major sections:

1. theme (a.k.a. topic): this section contains known information, this is what the speaker wants to state something about (may sometimes even be new, but less important information),
2. rheme (a.k.a. comment or predicate): this section contains new or important information, this is what the speaker states about the theme.

Rheme can be further divided into three positions:

• focus
• verb
• what follows the verb

A sentence may be broken down into four different positions that phrases can take (denoted as A, B, C and D for simplicity):

• A – recalls already known information (from the context or what has previously been said)
• B – main message, most important information; the "peak" of the rheme
• C – verb, central part of the sentence
• D – "descending" or least important part of the sentence (might still contain new information)

If position B is taken, the sentence is an emphatic sentence (it has a specific focus), otherwise it is a neutral sentence (without any specific focus).

Positions A and D may be empty.

• In an emphatic sentence, the position of focus (B) is immediately before the verb (C).
  • In other words, nothing can separate the phrase in focus from the verb.
• In a neutral sentence, that is, if B is empty, the sentence has no communicative focus.
  • In this case, C is said to receive focus (a.k.a. verbal focus).

Phrases in positions A and D may be freely swapped without any change to the communicative focus of the sentence.

• Emphatic sentences: the phrase in focus position is always stressed in speech, and the verb is not stressed in speech.
• Neutral sentences (verbal focus): the verb is stressed in speech, although less markedly, compared to stress used in emphatic sentences.

(Note: As a general rule, prosody is primary and syntax is secondary. With regard to focus, this means that stress takes precedence over word order in spoken language. That is, in rare cases, one might want to change syntax-driven focus by strongly stressing a phrase in a non-focus position.)

Syntax itself is not always enough to determine whether a sentence is emphatic or neutral. If the verb of the sentence has no modifier, and the sentence is given without any context, then the emphatic or neutral nature of the sentence is determined by where the stress falls in speech.

In the following examples, spoken stress is indicated with an apostrophe at the beginning of the stressed word.

(Note: As previously stated, the phrase taking the focus position is always stressed in speech. The reason stress is indicated explicitly here is to show the difference between emphatic and neutral sentences with the same word order.)

Nominal predicates are compound predicates that consist of a nominal and a copula, e.g. jó lesz.

The nominal predicate in the following examples is: hideg lesz.

(Note: Past tense works similarly, with hideg volt.)

In Hungarian nominal predicates, the copula van is hidden in the present tense, third person singular:

(Note: In a neutral sentence with a nominal predicate and a hidden copula (verb), the nominal – being the only component of the predicate – plays the same role as a verb in a regular predicate. In this special case, the sentence has nominal focus instead of a verbal focus. The last sentence is incorrect because the adverbial ősszel separates Balaton, the phrase in the focus position, from the nominal hideg. Another example for the same kind of mistake with a regular predicate: A 'Balaton télen befagy., with Balaton in focus. If Balaton were not in focus, that is, not stressed in speech, it would be a correct sentence.)

Question words always take the focus position.

(Note: Miért is an exception, because it can refer to the verb, but it can also refer to some other part of the sentence. If it refers to the verb, it gets focus, eg. 'Miért üldözi a vadász az oroszlánt? – Why is the hunter chasing the lion? If, however, it refers to another part of the sentence, then it is not in focus, eg. Miért az 'oroszlánt üldözi a vadász. – Why is it the lion that the hunter is chasing? )

(Note: The sentences struck out are incorrect because ősszel comes between the nominal of the predicate and the phrase in focus.)

A verb modifier may be either a verbal prefix or a nominal (noun, adjective, numeral) with no article.

Examples:

• Verbal prefixes: kivág, elolvas, beül, lefest etc.
• Nominals without article: fát vág, könyvet olvas, autóba ül, zöldre fest etc.

A nominal without an article has exactly the same syntactic behavior as a verbal prefix.

A verb modifier either precedes or follows the verb:

• kivág – vág ki
• fát vág – vág fát
• elolvas – olvas el
• könyvet olvas – olvas könyvet
• etc.

Whether a verb modifier comes before or after the verb is determined by focus.

• Emphatic sentences : the modifier comes after the verb.
• Neutral sentences (verbal focus): the modifier comes before the verb.

(Note for learners of Hungarian: If the verb modifier comes after the verb, it is a good indicator of an emphatic sentence.)

• Anna nem olvasta el a könyvet tavaly.
• Anna nem a könyvet olvasta el tavaly.
• Nem Anna olvasta el a könyvet.
• Anna nem olvas könyvet esténként.
• Anna nem könyvet olvas esténként.
• Nem Anna olvas könyvet esténként.
• János nem adta át a kulcsokat a szomszédjának.
• János nem a kulcsokat adta át a szomszédjának.
• Nem János adta át a kulcsokat a szomszédjának.
• A Balaton nem fagy be télen.
• A Balaton nem télen fagy be.
• Nem a Balaton fagy be télen.

Nem always makes a sentence emphatic. If there is nem in the sentence, the verb modifier (if any) always comes after the verb.

In spoken language, nem is always stressed, and what nem negates is not stressed. Together they become a new phrase, a negated phrase.

(Note: An exception is when the verb is contrasted. In this case, however, the conjunctive word hanem must also be used in the sentence. Eg. Anna nem 'elolvasta a könyvet, hanem elajándékozta. This is a special case of verbal focus. Both verbs are stressed in speech, but the first one receives stronger stress.)

(Note: Notice that nem can negate any phrase in the sentence, and it always stands immediately before the phrase it negates.)

Hungarian has actually a more general rule at play than what is shown above.

If a sentence has a sentence modifier that is negative or restrictive in meaning, the sentence will become emphatic, just as with nem. On the other hand, if the modifier is positive or permissive in meaning, the sentence remains neutral.

Here are some examples:

• mindig (+) — rendszerint (+) — gyakran (+) ↔ néha (+/–) ↔ ritkán(–) — sohasem (–)
  • A Balaton mindig befagy télen.
  • A Balaton rendszerint befagy télen.
  • A Balaton gyakran befagy télen.
  • A Balaton néha befagy télen.
  • A Balaton csak néha fagy be télen. – Here, csak is restrictive, so it makes the sentence emphatic.
  • A Balaton ritkán fagy be télen.
  • A Balaton sohasem fagy be télen.

• teljesen (+) ↔ alig (–)
  • Anna teljesen megértette a nyelvtant.
  • Anna alig értette meg a nyelvtant.

Quantifiers in linguistics are operators that apply to sets.

Universal quantifiers reference each element in a set of things. Mindig and mindenki are examples of universal quantifiers. Within a given set, mindig references all time points, and mindenki references all people.

Quantifiers have their own position in the sentence, denoted by Q.

• Only one phrase can be present between the quantifier (Q) and the verb (C), and that is the focus (B).
• If B is empty, the quantifier (Q) is said to be in focus (quantifier focus), and it is stressed in speech.

The words is and sem are special universal quantifiers. Both reference all elements in a set. There is one important difference between the two:

• is is used to include in the set what stands right before is in the sentence,
• sem is used to exclude from the set what stands right before sem.

Both stand immediately after the phrase they operate on.

(Note: The positions of also or too as well as neither are much more restricted in English.)

• János watched the match too.
  • János is megnézte a meccset. – János is also in the group of people who watched the match.
  • János a meccset is megnézte. – The match is also in the set of things János watched.
• János did not watched the match either.
  • János sem nézte meg a meccset. – János is also excluded from the group of people who watched the match.
  • János a meccset sem nézte meg. – The match is also excluded from the set of things János watched.

	A	Q	B	C	D
neutral	’János	is	∅	megnézte	a meccset.
neutral	János a ’meccset	is	∅	megnézte.
emphatic	’János	sem	∅	nézte meg	a meccset.
emphatic	János a ’meccset	sem	∅	nézte meg.

• is never gets focus (not stressed in speech) → neutral
• sem always gets focus, regardless of whether position B is taken (although it is not stressed in speech) → emphatic