a borítólapra  Súgó epa Copyright 
Argumentum15. (2019.)

Tartalom

Tanulmány

  • Csaba Onder :
    Kölcsey Ferenc and the Finno-Ugric people1-7en [343.89 kB - PDF]EPA-00791-00016-0010

    Abstract: „Rudbeckianism” was the emblem of fictitious historical-etymological linguistics. How is it possible that even scientists considered serious enough, were fond of Rudbeckian principles? Below – as part of a larger research – we try to find the answers to the fact why politically exposed Ferenc Kölcsey (leading Hungarian writer and poet, a decisive scholar of the first third of the 19th century) in studying the Hungarian language, negates the theory of its Northern linguistic origin, how it’s linked to the critique of the language comparison method and the rudbeckian fictional historical-etymology and the criteria of science. We also explore, how big of an impact can a confusion have on history, if two scientists on the same name (father and son) are mixed up.

    Keywords: historical-etymological linguistics, linguistic origin, Ferenc Kölcsey, Olof Rudbeck

  • Edit Dobi :

    Abstract: In semiotic textology, constringency is regarded to be the single condition for text coherence. In general, it can be stated that a text is constringent if its actual recipient considers the complex of facts or state of affairs relevant to it to be well-formed and coherent. This concept of text meaning attributes significant importance to the creators/senders of texts and (mostly) to the recipients/interpreters of texts, as well as to the mental operations that are characteristic of them. Through this, semiotic textology expands the representation of text meaning undoubtedly towards cognitive semantics and pragmatics.

    Although the concept of constringency has appeared in the relevant terminology to complement the meaning representation of the text and its role in meaning representation is often described through its relation to coherence and planes of connectivity in the text meaning, its relative quality in the function of the specific circumstances of interpretation is not emphasized properly.

    The present study wishes to call attention to this relativity by listing the points that are assumed or supposed to have an effect on constringency judgments.

    Keywords: constringency, knowledge databases, potential worlds, types of interpretation

  • Adrienn Szecskó :

    Abstract: Several nations cultivate the habit of using first names to refer to persons or objects with pejorative connotation. In this paper I examine first names denominating prostitutes and loose women in the French slang of the 19th century. After presenting the characteristics of my corpus I classify the terms according to their morphological forms and to the period in which they were used. In the last part of the paper I present their semantic specificities, their interpretation is based on connotations in the majority of cases.

    Keywords: French slang in the 19th century, prostitutes and loose women, first names

Thirsting for the living word - Special issue in honor of professors József Andor and Sándor Martsa on the occasion of their 70th birthday

  • Preface44-45en [269.48 kB - PDF]EPA-00791-00016-0040
  • Martin Adam :

    Abstract: Anchored in the framework of functional linguistics, the paper attempts to present and compare two renowned linguists who, in their days, both researched what is now labelled information structure and who succeeded in elaborating revealing concepts of the sentence, viz. Hungarian scholar Sámuel Brassai and Czech scholar Jan Firbas. Even though the paper focuses on their understanding of the sentence, above all the topic-focus articula-tion, it also pays attention to the wider context of their careers and work. On top of that, by means of his modest contribution to the present volume, the author wishes to pay tribute to the Hungarian and Czech achievements in linguistics.

    Keywords: Brassai, Firbas, sentence, information, structure, FSP

  • Gábor Alberti ,
    Mónika Dóla ,
    Eszter Kárpáti ,
    Judit Kleiber ,
    Anna Szeteli ,
    Anita Viszket :
    Towards a cognitively viable linguistic representation62-80en [649.37 kB - PDF]EPA-00791-00016-0070

    Abstract: Sentence-size propositional contents should be constructed in formal semantics so that the resulting formulas can undergo truth evaluation in arbitrary possible worlds. This paper claims that the basic task of pragmatics can be reformulated as the designation of certain possible worlds on the basis of the linguistic form created by the speaker. A formal dynamic pragmatics can capture the linguistic phenomena traditionally described in such Searlean concepts as illocutionary act/effect and perlocutionary effect via designating the relevant subset of the basis of interpretation. In the possible world of addressers’ beliefs, for instance, the ideal truth values according to the three conventions are +1, 0, and –1. The eALIS framework serves as the theoretical background for our research. It can be regarded as the representationalist counterpart of Lauer’s antirepresentationalist dynamic pragmatics, provided that the first steps of both models are aimed at deciding what truth values the declarative, interrogative and imperative conventions “expect” in the addresser’s and he addressee’s definite possible worlds. The paper concludes with the take-home message that eALIS, in spite of its Montagovian fundament, aims at serving as a “cognitively viable linguistic representation” (Andor 2011: 1).

    Keywords: major sentence types; representational dynamic discourse semantics; mental states; bluff; lie

  • Keith Allan :

    Abstract: Semantics and pragmatics are defined in §1 and their respective histories examined in subsequent sections. §2 explains and gives the history of lexical semantics: the rise of componential analysis, fields and differential values, semantic primes and Natural Semantic Metalanguage, prototype and stereotype semantics. §3 examines the syntax-semantics interface: Katz’s semantic theory, identifying selectional restrictions, generative semantics, conceptual semantics, the issue of thematic roles, semantics and pragmatics in a functional grammar, semantic frames and meaning in construction grammar. §4 explicates and gives the history of logic and linguistic meaning: arguing for the importance of truth conditions, the characteristics of formal semantics, the semantics and pragmatics of anaphora. §5 surveys additional aspects of pragmatics: indexicals, scripts, and conversational implicature. Finally, §6 offers a summary of the foregoing.

    Keywords: lexical semantics, componential analysis, prototype semantics, stereotype semantics, Katz, generative semantics, conceptual semantics, frame semantics, truth conditional semantics, discourse representation theory, anaphora, indexicals, scripts, implicature

  • Judit Baranyiné Kóczi ,
    László Imre Komlósi :
    Revisiting literacy: Changing learning paradigms in digital culture117-132en [576.18 kB - PDF]EPA-00791-00016-0090

    Abstract: Our investigation identifies ways in which the transition from traditional social and cultural cognition based on real-world and real-time verbal interactions to digitalized interactions in virtual spaces takes place. We claim that the transition might induce serious concerns for traditional learning theories but promises to open new opportunities for novel and complex learning processes. Our study argues for the usefulness of linguistics for both neighboring fields in the humanities and in educational processes in order to understand how the mind works in learning and in social and cultural cognition. The paper discusses the difference between computationalism and culturalism which represent different assumptions for meaning creation. We also claim that digital culture has evoked worries for traditional learning theories and developmental psychology with reference to attention, memory, motivation, explanation, analytic mode of analysis and reasoning, text processing and information processing in general. We discuss the possible consequences of a radical, almost paradigmatic change for learning processes and knowledge management in digital culture. We present a case study of a linguistics workshop atelier in VR learning space.

    Keywords: cultural conceptualization, computationalism, culturalism, explanation, interpretation, causal-explanatory reasoning, interpretative-hermeneutic reasoning, intentional stance, meaning creation, digital culture, learning by doing, VR learning space, literacy

  • Réka Benczes :
    The name of the game: Rhyme and alliteration in multi-word expressions133-144en [288.42 kB - PDF]EPA-00791-00016-0100

    Abstract: While the Saussurean notion of the arbitrary sign has been a constant in linguistic theorizing, the past few decades have seen a substantial increase in linguistic research that downplays arbitrariness and highlights motivation as an organizing principle in language. Form does carry meaning for language users, and speakers in everyday acts of communication routinely show an interest in and enthusiasm for linguistic form. The paper outlines the extent and role that form-to-form motivational processes, in particular rhyme and alliteration, play in English multi-word expressions such as binomials, idioms, proverbs and slogans, and suggests that such devices serve a variety of purposes: reinforcing the meaning by virtue of repetition, enhancing the acceptability of novel constructions and creating an impression of enhanced truthfulness. At the same time, using alliteration and rhyme in multi-word units is simply enjoyable – the roots of which go all the way back to oral culture.

    Keywords: phonological motivation, rhyme, alliteration, English, multi-word unit, idiom, binomials, proverbs

  • Károly Bibok :
    A lexical pragmatic account of polysemy145-154en [482.27 kB - PDF]EPA-00791-00016-0110

    Abstract: Meanings of a word are traditionally considered a fixed list whose items can be enumerated. Recent trends in research into lexical meanings leave more room for encyclopaedic knowledge and contextual factors to construct full-fledged word meanings. An account of polysemy from a lexical pragmatic perspective can be based on the assumption that words have a wide range of various forms of underspecified lexical-semantic representations and, therefore, they reach their full meanings through considerable pragmatic inference relying on encyclopaedic information or on immediate and extended contexts. In addition, in doing so, one can simply answer the intricate question of traditional lexicology and lexicography which concerns the primary meaning of a polysemous word. The lexically underspecified meaning is primary and all the pragmatically constructed meanings are secondary. As presented with the help of thorough analyses of Hungarian and Russian nouns and verbs, such a lexical pragmatic treatment of polysemy makes it possible to reduce the ubiquitous meaning proliferation in con-texts/constructions. However, there also seems to be some limitations to this approach. Two groups of cases can be distinguished: a) metonymies and metaphors other than ones resulted by the concretization of underspecified meaning representations and b) words with more than one core meaning.

    Keywords: polysemy, lexical pragmatics, modes of underspecification, metonymies and metaphors related to underspecification

  • Attila Cserép :

    Abstract: Some sources trace the idiom put a damper/dampener on back to either the HEAT/FIRE or the SOUND domain. Damper is said to have originally referred to either a metal plate that regulates the air supply in a chimney or a device that stops the vibration of a piano string. Diachronic corpus evidence suggests that the sense ‘something that moistens’ of damper was metaphorically extended in the context of be, cast and throw and developed the meaning ‘somebody/something that depresses the spirits’ based on the conceptual metaphor EMOTIONAL INTENSITY IS HEAT/FIRE. The ‘draught regulator’ and ‘(piano) sound reducer’ senses are more recent develop-ments, and the variant dampener is much more recent.

    Keywords: idioms, etymology, conceptual metaphor, diachronic corpus, dictionaries

  • Mónika Dóla ,
    Anita Viszket :

    Abstract: In the paper, we argue that expressions like bánatomban ‘in my grief’ and ijedtében ‘in his/her fright’ are in-stances of a construction in its own right within the Hungarian language system, which is used in text to make predication about the mental state of the Agent subject as a cause for their action. In the first half of the paper, we describe the formal and functional characteristics of the construction. We propose that the construction, which we call [Nmental state.Poss.Iness]cause or, for ease, the mental-state-as-cause construction, is entrenched for the ex-pression of cause in Hungarian, and that this status imposes several morpho-syntactical and lexical-semantic con-straints on the construction and on the sentence. We also argue that in the construction, the possessive mor-pheme/phrase is subject to grammaticalization. In the second half of the paper, we investigate the cognitive-conceptual profile of the construction as an expression of cause, and we propose that in the construction as a cognitive unit, mental-state-as-cause is conceptualized as background.

    Keywords: mental state, cause, predicative complement, possession, grammaticalization, conceptual metaphor

  • Judit Dombi :

    Abstract: This paper analyzes interlanguage requests of different degrees of imposition produced by Hungarian advanced EFL students in elicited vs. spontaneously written emails to their teacher. Eighty-one requests written by 46 stu-dents were collected to constitute the natural email data. The other dataset comprised 78 requests elicited from the email writers through an email-like written discourse completion test (WDCT). Requests in the spontane-ously produced emails and the elicited texts were analyzed in term of length, level of directness, internal modifi-cation, supportive moves, and request perspectives. Descriptive statistics, t-test, and Chi-square test were per-formed on both datasets to investigate the differences. Although WDCT is considered the most commonly used data collection instrument in interlanguage pragmatics due to its numerous advantages, its validity and reliability have often been questioned when compared to naturalistic data. The present study, besides shedding light on Hungarian EFL learners’ request patterns drawing on data gathered through diverse sources also aims to add to the understanding of to what extent elicited data approximates naturalistic data in an interlanguage speech act research context The results show that participants generated significantly longer request sequences in their spontaneous emails than in the WDCT emails, while using similar patterns of internal syntactic modification and supportive moves. Internal lexical modification, especially the use of the marker please appeared significantly more often in naturalistic data than in WDCT. As regards the realization of low vs. high- imposition requests the analysis found various statistically significant differences with regard to strategy type and request modification.

    Keywords: email, WDCT, interlanguage pragmatics, request

  • Kornél Farkas :

    Abstract: As a contribution to research on language teachers’ beliefs in various cultural and educational contexts, this pilot study offers insights into the teaching-related beliefs and experiences of Hungarian (n=12) and Turkish (n=17) pre-service EFL teachers gained from a new reflective instrument that was designed specifically for this purpose. The reflective template—consisting of prompts that help language teachers reflect on their beliefs in the form of short, written statements—is presented in relation to a concise theoretical background and three types of results drawn from the sample (a group profile, a comparison of two groups, and an individual profile). In light of the presented results, the study discusses how the exploration of language teachers’ beliefs and experiences can be used for assessing and refining the curricular content of teacher education courses in (and beyond) the countries involved, and how the reflective template can be a tool for language teachers to develop new understandings of their own beliefs and dispositions, and for teacher educators to promote dialogic interaction and knowledge construction in their courses.

    Keywords: language teacher beliefs, reflective teaching, reflective template, language teacher education

  • Tamás Fekete ,
    Ádám Porkoláb :

    Abstract: In this paper, we investigate the phenomenon of skeuomorphism in language. The word and the phenomenon itself originates in design and to our knowledge only very few scholarly articles have been written on the subject Veszelszki (2017: 104) defines it as “meaning extension”. In the Hungarian literature, this area is virtually un-known. Our aim is to point out that skeuomorphism could be construed as a method of word-formation. In our contribution, we present the semiotic and historical linguistic aspects of skeuomorphism and cite lexical exam-ples to support our hypothesis.

    Keywords: skeuomorphism, word-formation, language of computing, analogy, netlinguistics

  • Gábor Győri :

    Abstract: Basic level categorization relies heavily on perceptual characteristics of objects and such attributes play a crucial role in forming the meanings of basic level nouns and in arranging them in a taxonomic hierarchy. Verbs cannot be described on a perceptual basis in this straightforward manner. However, the characterization of basic level terms as being the first learnt and most used and useful ones in everyday linguistic communication applies not only to nouns but also to verbs. Thus, it is obviously justified to speak not only of basic level nouns but also of basic level verbs. The present paper takes a look at the question how basic level verbs can be identified on the basis of not only linguistic but also cognitive criteria. The question is whether there is a basic level in the categorization of processes, motions and actions at which we recognize particular instances of them and whether such a level is comparable to the basic level in the categorization of objects. Related to this question the paper examines how verbs, if at all, can be arranged into taxonomic hierarchies.

    Keywords: categorization, perception, motor cognition, basic level verbs, verbal hyponymy

  • Hartvig Gabriella :

    Abstract: The acquiring of books during bishop Ignác Szepesy’s life, now stored in the Klimo collection of the University Library of Pécs, took place in the Reform age. The acquired books were placed into the so-called Szepesy room of the library between 1828 and 1859, partly after the bishop’s death in 1838. In this collection, among other English literary works, we can find an “English reader”, Johan Christian Fick’s English language book, the Englisches Lesebuch oder auserlesene Sammlung (1807). This Lesebuch, besides giving insight into the sources of contemporary English language books published in Germany, offers an overview of contemporary English literature, too. The selection of extracts informs us about the most popular English authors read by the European, especially German, reader. In this paper, by using the Eighteenth Century Collections Online database, I aim to identify the possible source texts for many of the excerpts found in Fick’s Lesebuch.

    Keywords: Klimo collection, Lesebuch, Johann Christian Fick, eighteenth-century English literature, poetry, the English novel

  • Irén Hegedűs :

    Abstract: The lexeme CHILD tends to become grammaticalized in languages of the world, and in this process, it serves as Source for three main Targets: 1) classifier, 2) diminutive and 3) partitive (Heine & Kuteva 2004). This paper intends to examine whether these cross-linguistically frequent grammaticalization patterns are reflected in Hungarian. By analysing the etymological development of the lexeme fia ‘son’ and its derivatives, I argue that the Hungarian data a) fit into the established grammaticalization patterns; b) reflect the semantic shifts represented in the radial category model (Jurafsky 1996). The investigation highlights the etymological connection between the Hungarian lexemes fia ‘son’, fióka ‘nestling’ and fiók ‘drawer’, which is no longer transparent for the native speakers.

    Keywords: grammaticalization, historical semantics, metaphorical transfer, diminutive, radial category model

  • Zoltán Kövecses :
    Metaphor universals in literature264-276en [478.46 kB - PDF]EPA-00791-00016-0200

    Abstract: In the paper, I propose that metaphor is a near-universal feature of poetry (in that most poetry operates with metaphor). A second metaphor universal in poetry (but possibly also in much of literature in general) is that the metaphors are conceptual metaphors expressed by certain linguistic manifestations. Third, the (unconscious) selection of the metaphors used by poets can be influenced by the various types of context: situational, discourse, bodily, and conceptual-cognitive. Fourth, the metaphors occur on various levels of schematicity. Fifth, the con-ceptual metaphors that are based on universal correlations in experience are potentially universal; they are pre-sent in the poetry of certain unrelated languages/cultures, but not in that of all languages/cultures (i.e., they are not absolute universals). At the same time, the conceptual metaphors based on resemblance tend to be highly variable cross-linguistically.

    Keywords: metaphor, universals, variation in metaphor, context, schematicity

  • Magdolna Lehmann :
    Models of the mental lexicon277-289en [389.23 kB - PDF]EPA-00791-00016-0210

    Abstract: This paper overviews models of how words are stored, accessed and retrieved from the mental lexicon, our complex and dynamic human word store in the brain, and novel approaches to the field. The models discussed encapsulate the organization and components of the mental lexicon as well as how the components are interre-lated. Besides the direct (Morton’s logogen, Marslen-Wilson’s cohort) and indirect models (Forster’s search model) focusing entirely on the mental lexicon, more recent models are also introduced where lexical processing is treated as a sub-dimension of a wider realm of mental processes.

    Keywords: word, mental lexicon, lexical processing

  • Németh T. Enikő :

    Abstract: In verbal communication the speakers attempt to express their intention through their perspectives either explicitly or implicitly. However, for the hearers it is not an easy task to recognize the speakers’ intentions. Therefore, the speakers provide various linguistic and contextual clues to enable their partners to take their perspectives and infer their intentions. The present paper aims to investigate these clues through a short case study on the use of vocative forms Daddy, Honey, and Darling. By analysing some data from a thought experiment and a corpus, the paper also attempts to highlight that linguistic and contextual information interact in the expressing and identifying procedures of intentions and perspectives.

    Keywords: intention, perspective, linguistic clues, contextual clues, vocative forms

  • Péter Pelyvás :
    On epistemic and deontic grounding304-315en [335.12 kB - PDF]EPA-00791-00016-0230

    Abstract: The cognitive analysis of the grounding predication has had a marked tendency to shift to the epistemic side of the phenomenon – to the extent that the grounding predication as a whole is now often referred to as epistemic grounding. This paper proposes to investigate the reasons for this shift, seen as rooted in the history of the research and the nature of the phenomena involved, to draw a dividing line between the epistemic and the deontic components of the grounding predication and to show that the deontic component, although in a sense subordinate to, and in many ways different from the epistemic side, is nevertheless rightfully considered to be an independent part of the grounding predication.

    Keywords: epistemic grounding, deontic grounding, modal, metaphorical extension, cognitive predicate, direction of fit

  • Csaba Pléh ,
    Ivády Rozália Eszter ,
    Judit Nagy-György :
    Interaction of form and content in metalinguistic judgments316-331en [443.65 kB - PDF]EPA-00791-00016-0240

    Abstract: The paper presents empirical studies on the effects of formal, grammatical correctness and content correctness on metalinguistic judgments of Hungarian sentences while the self-consciousness of the subjects was varied by using a mirror during the task. The empirical study relates to the theoretical rivalry issue of primacy of form or prag-matics in sentence processing and metalinguistic judgements.

    The aspect of content was less important than that of form. Even so, subjects only accepted 21% of the gram-matically correct sentences with a semantic anomaly. There was a significant difference between perceptual vs lexico-semantical types of knowledge: we tend to accept sentences based on lexico-semantic knowledge more readily. We tend to accept everything we do not know for certain.

    Keywords: form- and content-based processing, metalinguistic judgement, linguistic awareness, perceptual and conceptual knowledge

  • György Rákosi :

    Abstract: While overt pronoun possessors must co-occur with the definite article in Hungarian, possessor pro-drop allows for the omission of the definite article in definite possessive noun phrases. This type of article omission has received explicit attention in the recent literature (see especially Dóla et. al 2017, Viszket & Dóla (to appear) and Virovec (to appear)), and the emerging consensus is that a complex web of factors is responsible for the non-appearance of the definite article in licensing contexts. This paper offers a corpus study of pertinent data in search of an answer to the question whether the presence or the absence of the definite article by pro-dropped possessors can be systematically linked to the presence or the absence of clause-mate antecedents for the possessor. We argue that the answer is in the negative, and the data altogether support an analysis in which definite article drop in this construction is essentially a phonological phenomenon, with no obvious syntactic relevance in current Hungarian.

    Keywords: antecedent, corpus study, definite article, possessor pro-drop, possessive structure

  • Gábor Szabó ,
    Marianne Nikolov :

    Abstract: This paper analyzes the answers collected with the help of an online questionnaire to explore the needs of stu-dents learning English and German at seven secondary schools. A top-down project (EFOP-3.2.14-17) aimed to enhance students’ proficiency in English and German by inviting experts at Hungarian universities training pre-service teachers of English and German to design innovative and motivating courses for schools teaching disad-vantaged students. The underlying assumption was that young pre-service teachers close in age to the target population would be able to boost and maintain students’ language learning motivation by applying non-tradi-tional tasks in free extra classes. To tap into students’ needs at the participating schools, a questionnaire was de-signed and filled in by a total of 114 learners of English (55) and German (59). The first part of the paper places the project in context by describing the language teaching situation in Hungary and the main ideas underlying the project. The second part presents the findings about the respondents’ language learning background, their attitudes and motivation. It analyzes students’ responses to open questions: what types of tasks they like, dislike and would appreciate in a new course. Finally, limitations and the way forward are outlined.

    Keywords: students’ language learning background, motivation, goals, liked and disliked classroom activities in English and German

  • Lilla Szabó :

    Abstract: Back-formation is a process of English word-formation that due to its irregular nature both in terms of form and meaning, has yielded several possible interpretations from linguistic scholars, with regards to the way it operates on words that are non-affixed, yet interpreted by speakers as complex ones. The paper sets out to assemble the various views held on the way this mechanism of word creation may operate, i.e. the ones that consider it a rule-based and analogical process, along with the possibility of back-formation being the simultaneous operation of clipping and conversion. Another alternative under cognitive grammar is also offered, arguing that back-formation can be efficiently interpreted with the help of schema theory. Additionally, the use of back-formation is explored in corpus data as well, highlighting the genres in which words created via this process commonly occur.

    Keywords: back-formation, analogy, word-formation rules, conversion, clipping, schema, corpus

  • Gertrúd Szamosi :

    Abstract: The bagpipe and the tartan cloth are some of the best known Scottish national symbols that originate from the Highlands and are connected to the emblematic figure of the Highlander. In the period following the union of England and Scotland, and at the influence of the Scottish Enlightenment, the Highlands and Islands underwent major reforms that considerably changed the economic and cultural life of the area and caused the subsequent metamorphoses of the Highlander. The article explores the role and effect of those notable events that in the course of the 18-19th centuries affected and altered the national consciousness of the Scots.

    Keywords: Scottish, national identity, historical consciousness, Highlander, tartanry, Romanticism, James Macpherson, Sir Walter Scott

  • Szűcs Tibor :
    Az állandó változás fordított világa409-420 [481.48 kB - PDF]EPA-00791-00016-0290

    Abstract: The present study displays the reverse world of Sándor Weöres's deeply philosophical conceptual lyric poetry in two ways: on the one hand the polarity of the continuous change in it, and the linguistic mapping of his oppositions, on the other hand the Italian translation of two of his poems, which reflect his human and artistic creeds. The linguistic and art semiotic approach outlines the poet’s dynamically vivid thoughts, visual and linguistic world, furthermore intertextually links them to his related verses. The successful translations show that along with the mediation of the process of his thoughts and visual world the relevant composition can also prevail.

    Keywords: Sándor Weöres, philosophical lyric poetry, semiotics of language and arts, linguistic image of the world, translation of poems

  • Julia Tanabe :
    Japanese students’ intercultural gains in a study abroad context421-446en [579.60 kB - PDF]EPA-00791-00016-0300

    Abstract: This multiple case study explores the intercultural development and its underlying factors within a Hungarian study abroad (SA) context through researching four Japanese students’ experiences. Participants were four female Japanese exchange students who studied for one year at the University of Pécs, Hungary. Data were collected retrospectively using various instruments. In-depth interviews were conducted immediately after the sojourn and follow-up interviews took place four years later to tap into the long-term impact. The interview questions elaborated on the participants’ experiences at four time intervals: prior SA, upon arrival, during SA and post SA; the follow-up interviews applied stimulated recall to elicit the sojourners’ accounts. Participants filled in a questionnaire about their self-perceived intercultural communicative competence. In addition to these data, Facebook posts about their SA experiences were also used as authentic SA materials reflecting lived experiences. The cross-case analysis revealed that although the majority of participants studied abroad at different times, they shared many aspects of their SA outcomes. Findings suggest that visiting Hungarian homes and social networking with locals and international students played a major role in their intercultural development and it was necessary for constructing a critical self. It also expanded their knowledge and shaped their understanding of their own context. English as a lingua franca was an important aspect of communication in three cases, boosting students’ self-confidence in approaching speakers of other languages. SA supported all participants to a varying degree to think more globally and served as an essential opportunity to grow and shift towards becoming intercultural individuals.

    Keywords: intercultural communicative competence, study abroad, lingua franca

(↑TOPIC NUM) = 60 Special issue in honour of Tibor Laczkó on the occasion of his 60th birthday

  • Gábor Alberti ,
    Judit Farkas :
    Scope inversion under the fall–rise contour?453-471en [470.52 kB - PDF]EPA-00791-00016-0320

    Abstract: In Hungarian, the scope order of preverbal (non-in-situ) constituents corresponds to their surface order. Quantifiers and certain other operator expressions ω under the fall–rise contour typical of contrastive topics, however, apparently violate this generalization by giving the impression of having inverse scope, relative to some kind of focus operator. The solution to this “scope inversion” puzzle in Hungarian proposed by Gyuris (2009) rests on the following, unexplained, observation: “only those Hungarian sentences containing a contrastive topic are well-formed that have well-formed counterparts with the contrastive topic expression in postverbal position.” We claim that the Gyuris-style “well-formed counterpart” can serve as an initial state of syntactic derivation from which the problematic word-order variant can be constructed by moving the whole “big” ωP constituent (containing the finite VP) to the left periphery but by spelling it out there only partially. The crucial point is that in this way the inverse-scope puzzle simply vanishes, because, within the “big” ωP constituent, the meaning-reflecting Foc>ω scope order does not change through the whole process of derivation, and what finally takes scope over the focus is factually a contrastively topicalized (proposition-based) property type semantic content, and not the semantic content that the sentence-initial noun phrase under the fall–rise contour suggests.

    Keywords: contrastive topic, Hungarian information structure, inverse-scope puzzle, partial spell-out

  • Attila Cserép :
    Variability of kick the bucket472-489en [716.90 kB - PDF]EPA-00791-00016-0330

    Abstract: This paper presents two different theoretical models of idioms and illustrates how the researcher’s approach determines the treatment of figurative meaning, in particular the assignment of senses to idiom components. Corpus data are used to retrieve variant forms of kick the bucket to assess the degree of frozenness and relate the findings to the models presented.

    Keywords: idioms, decomposition, flexibility

  • Mary Dalrymple ,
    Tracy Holloway King :
    An amazing four doctoral dissertations490-503en [471.86 kB - PDF]EPA-00791-00016-0340

    Abstract: We examine the construction exemplified in the title, in which the singular indefinite determiner a is followed by an adjective, a numeral, and then unexpectedly a plural nominal. We discuss the syntactic structure of the construction, present new generalizations about its properties, and sketch a syntactic constructional analysis in the LFG framework.

    Keywords: LFG, agreement, noun phrases, constructions, English

  • Marcel den Dikken :
    ‘Not’: Not Non-projecting504-533en [625.17 kB - PDF]EPA-00791-00016-0350

    Abstract: This paper argues for a unified perspective on constituent negation and sentential negation as involving a projection of the functional head Neg, with languages differing with regard to the position occupied by the negation particle: the Neg-head position or SpecNegP. Sentential negation features an abstract negation operator (¬), with scope over the entire proposition (except illocutionary force). Constituent negation involves occurrences of NegP not paired with the abstract negation operator.

    Keywords: constituent negation, sentential negation, negation operator, NegP

  • Dobi Edit :

    Abstract: As a result of János S. Petőfi’s research into text coherence via a semiotic textology approach, the concept of constringency has appeared in the terminology of coherence as a phenomenon that is related to the problematics of the cohesion-connexity-coherence triad. It should be noted here that constringency describes the recipient’s impression that presumably precedes the identification of the function of referring elements in the linguistic organization of the given text. That is to say, the semantic, grammatical and/or other (stylistic, acoustic, visual, etc.) connective and referential components that are present in the text merely support the recipient’s positive judgment of constringency. The lack of these, however, does not weaken or cancel the consistency of the state of affairs that are assumedly rendered to the text. In the present study, I analyze eight short texts consisting of two sentences each in order to make an attempt to illustrate – on the one hand, the relation between linguistic forms and constringency judgments mentioned above; – and, on the other hand, the interaction of those meaning components whose relations’ representation may contribute to the understanding of positive constringency judgments (despite the fact that these relations do not become explicit in the linguistic form of the sentences). Finally, I propose a potential representation of the lexico-semantic relations between the meaning components described above.

    Keywords: constringency, lexico-semantics, thesauristic explication

  • Zsuzanna Gécseg :

    Abstract: The aim of this paper is to examine the factors that determine the syntactic position of the subject in Hungarian existential constructions. I argue that the exact positioning of the subject in these constructions is influenced by a number of semantic and contextual features, such as the semantic and pragmatic function of the utterance and the information status of the individual denoted by the subject. These factors may interact with each other, but there is always a dominant strategy which determines the order of the constituents.

    Keywords: existential construction, preverbal subject, postverbal subject, predication of location, predication of existence, topic promotion, description, (un)expectedness

  • Helge Lødrup :
    The accusative external possessor with Norwegian unergatives561-574en [288.22 kB - PDF]EPA-00791-00016-0380

    Abstract: Norwegian allows an unergative verb to take an external DP/NP possessor with a body part noun, as in Hun tråkket ham på føttene ‘she stepped him on feet.DEF’. This construction is both similar to and different from other cases of possessor raising (Lødrup 2009a), and raises some challenges for syntactic analysis. This article gives a new account of the synchronic facts, and shows that the construction must have arisen through a reanalysis of the corresponding construction in Old Norse

    Keywords: Norwegian syntax, external possessors, possessor raising, body part nouns

  • Louise Mycock :

    Abstract: The study of Hungarian has provided and continues to offer important insights into how different aspects of lin-guistic structure may interact. As a classic discourse-configurational language in which syntax and information structure are closely related, research on Hungarian such as Laczkó (2017) has revealed much about discourse functions and how these can be encoded in the syntax. An important thread running through this research is the study of ‘wh’-question formation, not least because ‘wh’-questions have played such a crucial part in the devel-opment of modern syntactic theory. In this paper, I turn to a type of ‘wh’-question which surprisingly has received relatively little attention: the ‘wh’ Echo Question, or ‘wh’-EQ. I provide what is, to the best of my knowledge, the first exploration of the relevant typological space, before presenting the first analysis of ‘wh’-EQs in the framework of Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG), taking Hungarian as the major case-study lan-guage. In order to provide a full analysis of ‘wh’-EQs cross-linguistically, I develop a consistent representation of speech acts in the LFG framework. This new approach offers a way to represent information about speech acts that is crucial to the analysis of not only ‘wh’-EQs but also reporting constructions (quotation) more generally. In turn, this work opens the door to exploring issues relating to the representation of discourse structure and pragmatics more widely within the LFG framework.

    Keywords: echo questions, Lexical-Functional Grammar, typology, insubordination, quotation

  • Péter Pelyvás :
    The modal and the temporal in will591-601en [512.31 kB - PDF]EPA-00791-00016-0400

    Abstract: Salkie (2010) argues that will is essentially a marker of the future tense in English, stating that the evidence against analyzing it as tense is weak and that ‘the arguments in favour of treating it as a modal also turn out to be poor’.

    In an attempt to draw a clear dividing line between tense and modality he tends to overemphasize the similarity of will with inflectional future tense and to downplay the significance of the modal ingredients, leaving diachronic development altogether out of consideration. Although his title can be seen as suggesting a gradience or at least compatibility between the two elements, his conclusion is that in Modern English will is not a modal in its conceptual content: it is better analyzed as a marker of the future tense.

    Rather than looking for evidence that can decide between strict dichotomies, the cognitive analysis given here aims to highlight the integrated nature of the tense-modal complex: two essential ingredients of Langacker’s grounding predication. In this paper, a critique of Salkie’s view, I do not argue against the validity of the temporal element in will. Instead, my aim is to give evidence that the modal and the temporal may be inseparable in the complex (often metaphorical) routes of the sense development of this modal (put forward in Pelyvás 2008), proposing that the real answer to Salkie’s question is: both.

    Keywords: diachronic data, tense-modal complex, subject-oriented vs. speaker-oriented modality, epistemic grounding, metaphorical extension

  • György Rákosi :

    Abstract: The paper offers an overview of Hungarian data pertaining to the Anaphor Agreement Effect (Rizzi 1990, and subsequent work), which bans -covarying agreement between anaphors and agreement targets. Hungarian is especially interesting in this respect since it has both rich agreement morphology and a variety of reflexive ana-phors. The paper argues that the primary reflexive anaphor and the reciprocal anaphor do not occur in syntactic positions construed with agreement, but complex reflexives trigger trivial 3SG agreement. This is surprising be-cause even the primary reflexive has a possessive structure. It is argued that the primary reflexive has a -defective stem and is smaller than a DP, whereas the complex reflexives surveyed here are not defective in this respect and they have a DP shell. This accounts for the observed differences in their distribution.

    Keywords: anaphor, Anaphor Agreement Effect, Hungarian, possessive, reflexive, reciprocal

  • Sadler Louisa :
    Multiple Controllers in Nominal Modification617-638en [118.99 kB - PDF]EPA-00791-00016-0420

    Abstract: The standard view of predicate-argument agreement in LFG is based on co-specification, such that both the target and the controller specify values of f-structure features of the controller. The same co-specificational view is generally extended to cases of NP-internal concord. For both types of agreement, a feature-sharing approach, in which the agreement features are represented in the f-structures of both the target and the controller, is also possible. Recent work by Haug & Nikitina (2012, 2015) motivates a symmetrical feature-sharing analysis in a case of longdistance agreement in which an agreement target itself operates as a controller in a further agreement domain. We argue that a feature-sharing analysis is also motivated in the analysis of a particular class of adjectivally headed nominal modifiers in Arabic in which a single agreement target reflects the intrinsic properties of two different controllers

    Keywords: Modern Standard Arabic, Lexical Functional Grammar, agreement, multiple controllers

  • Szabó Martina Katalin ,
    Bibok Károly :

    Abstract: The present paper examines Hungarian words that have negative semantic content and are able to function as intensifiers of other lexemes, e.g.: borzasztóan jó ’awfully good’. The phenomenon is called polarity losing. Another similar phenomenon, namely polarity shift, is also analysed because of their strong semantic-pragmatic relatedness. In the case of polarity shift a lexeme with negative semantic content can express a positive evaluative meaning in a given context, e.g.: durva buli ’wicked party’. The main question of the research is revealing what the proper lexical representation of such lexemes could be, concerning their different occurrences in various contexts. The paper points out that the problem of polarity losing can be adequately treated in a lexical pragmatic framework (Bibok 2014, 2017), assuming an underspecified lexical-semantic representation that contains an optional component, i.e. INTENSIFICATION. However, in the case of polarity shift a distinct semantic representation is necessary.

    Keywords: polarity losing, polarity shift, lexical pragmatics, underspecified lexical-semantic representation

  • Péter Szűcs :
    Remarks on binding and control data in Hungarian Complex Event Nominals650-664en [379.29 kB - PDF]EPA-00791-00016-0440

    Abstract: This article makes some remarks about binding and control data in Hungarian Complex Event Nominals (CENs). Taking Kenesei (2005) and Laczkó (2000, 2005, 2008, 2009) as starting point, I argue that binding and control patterns in CENs are affected by the following: i) the (non-)exhaustivity entailment of the control predicate; ii) logophoricity; iii) the pragmatics of the non-obligatorily controlled PRO subjects. For the most part, the emerging view does not contradict, but rather enriches and qualifies the aforementioned accounts. CENs are independent syntactic units for the purposes of binding and control. Most apparent counter-examples can be explained in terms of i)-iii). However, there are some residual data which might lead to a shift in the background assumptions.

    Keywords: complex event nominals, binding, control

  • Anita Viszket ,
    Mónika Dóla :
    A névelő hasznáról665-673 [360.14 kB - PDF]EPA-00791-00016-0450

    Abstract: What is the use of the definite article? In their 1992 paper, Tibor Laczkó and Anna Szabolcsi attribute the article the role to create argumental noun phrases. But how about noun phrases that are definite and argumental already without the article? What may be the role of the article in these constructions? Noun phrases containing a possessor are constructions of this type; it is still a subject of future research when the article must or may be used in these structures. The present paper summarizes Tibor Laczkó’s findings on to the Hungarian noun phrase that our ongoing research project builds on, in relation to article usage with possessive constructions. The noun phrase; the possessive construction; the inalienable possessor; the specific features of possessive predicative complements – these all offer invaluable insights on the role of the definite article. At this point being unable to give a full explanatory account of the phenomenon, here we aim at two goals. We wish to give an overview of the solved and yet to be solved issues in relation to the role of the definite article, and we would like to explore how the various syntactic and pragmatic features relate to each other in the targeted constructions.

    Keywords: article, argument, definite, possessive, inalienable

Tanulmány

  • Christina Hodeib :
    Apology Strategies in Syrian Arabic674-701en [744.61 kB - PDF]EPA-00791-00016-0460

    Abstract: This paper investigates apology strategies by native speakers of Syrian Arabic. Forty-five university students participated in the study, which was conducted using a Discourse Completion Test (DCT). The data were analyzed within the framework of Olshtain and Cohen (1983). The results show that the apology strategies used by the participants conform to the suggested universality of apologies. Moreover, the data include strategies that are language and culture-specific such as the use of God’s name and the use of proverbs and folk expressions either to magnify the apology or to blame the other participant. As far as the influence of social factors on the use of the strategies is concerned, Illocutionary Force Indicating Devices (IFIDs) are used most frequently in relation to the age factor: when the addressee is older than the apologizer. The status of the addressee has also proved to be important in the use of IFIDs. More IFIDs are used when the addressee is of higher status, but when the social distance is low and the status is equal, IFIDs appear with lower frequency. Repairs are used, as predicted, in situations containing physical and emotional damage. The design of the DCT seems to motivate the occurrence of non-apology strategies.

    Keywords: speech acts, apologies, Syrian Arabic, social distance, status

  • Dóra Pődör :

    Abstract: This paper examines the use of the term ʻcombining form’ in eight English monolingual online dictionaries. The definitions given for this compound as a headword are compared and analysed, and the lexical categorization of the examples cited in the definitions is also checked against their categorization as headwords. Thus the internal consistency of these dictionaries can be scrutinized, and the similarities and the differences in the treatment of certain bound morphemes that linguists normally classify as ʻcombining forms’ can be revealed in these dictionaries and even within the same dictionary family.

    Keywords: combining form, dictionary, lexicography, prefix, suffix

  • Bakaja Zoltán :
    Bhagavad-gītā As It Is – elvárások és átváltási műveletek716-737 [439.06 kB - PDF]EPA-00791-00016-0480

    Abstract: In this article, I offer insights into the transfer operations of the book Bhagavad-gītā As It Is (1983). The article is intended for the followers of the author A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Orientalist scholars, and researchers of translation. The latter would be interested in the transfer operations from Sanskrit to English, since some of these are not included in Klaudy's book Languages in Translation (2007a), as well as the opinions presented about the characteristics and nature of philological translation. With the examples in this study I would like to draw the attention of the first two groups to the fact that if they are expecting a word-for-word translation, it is based on a myth of their own creation: translations appreciated by them are not as literal as they would expect of the works of others.

    Keywords: Bhagavad-gītā, Bhaktivedanta, transfer operations, philological translation, literal translation

  • Mezőlaki Regina ,
    Ivaskó Lívia :

    Abstract: The main aim of this paper is to demonstrate the ways how the employers’ behaviour can be formed by the deficits of interactions resulted from autism, which show the norm-contravener verbal behaviour marks of the neurotypical population. We analysed in different social interactions of conflicts, whether the emloyer’s communication strategy depends on if the interlocuter is neurotypical or autistical person, and if they have autism, then the employer’s precognitions about autism are going to influence the management of the communicational situation or not. The results of this pilot research were discussed and assessed within the confines of the questions above.

    Keywords: autism spectrum disorder, deficits in reciprocal communication, deficits in reciprocal social interaction, theory of mind, pragmatic competence, research of the attitudes of employers, conflict management

  • Bakaja Zoltán :

    Abstract: It is stated in Kinga Klaudy's book entitled Bevezetés a fordítás gyakorlatába that specification of reporting verbs comes from the characteristics of Hungarian verbs, and the cause of their employment can be found in the stylistic conventions and translational norms. The idea of writing this study arose when I observed specification of the Sanskrit verb uvāca in an English translation of the Bhagavad-gītā. In the course of my research, I studied transfer operations applied in the translation of a specific Sanskrit reporting clause in a corpus which contained 33 partial or complete English, Hungarian and Hindi translations of the Bhagavad-gītā. My research shows that in the case of the verb uvāca there are specifications of reporting verbs in many English editions, however, in many Hungarian editions specification was not applied at all. I have also noticed that we can find specific transfer operations in the case of other words of the reporting clause as well. My study explores these cases and also points out that there are well defined translational traditions regarding the translation of the verb uvāca both in English and Hungarian

    Keywords: Bhagavad-gītā, reporting clause, transfer operations, translational tradition, uvāca

  • Bakaja Zoltán :
    A Bhagavad-gītā As It Is fordításának egyes lexikai problémái784-798 [423.40 kB - PDF]EPA-00791-00016-0510

    Abstract: This study is explores how to solve some lexical problems which arise while translating the English book Bhagavad-gītā As It Is by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda into Hungarian. Most of the examined expressions fall into the category of realias, which are words difficult to translate because of their exclusive connection with a certain culture. In my work, I will not analyze the existing Hungarian editions, but rather I will consider questions which translators have to deal with when beginning their work. The expressions I will examine are the verb of the beszélőjelölő "speaker reference", living entity, self-realization, and the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

    Keywords: Bhagavad-gītā, beszélőjelölő, living entity, self-realization, Supreme Personality of Godhead.

  • András Kertész ,
    Csaba Földes :

    Abstract: The paper discusses the present state of the art of German studies in Hungary in the context of the main tendencies in the European higher education area. As a point of departure, we give a brief overview of substantial developments in the European higher education area. Then, a brief analysis follows which reveals some main features of the current situation of the humanities in Hungary resulting from the European developments. As a third step, our train of thought is further narrowed down by relating the findings of this analysis to the current tendencies in and perspectives of German studies in the Hungarian higher education system. Fourth, the overall picture that emerges in this way is supplemented by two empirical surveys. The final section sketches some of the strategies that may contribute to overcoming the difficulties with which German studies in Hungary have been confronted.

    Keywords: German studies, European higher education area, multingualism, humanities, Hungarian higher education system