The interpretation of Hungarian focus structures
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Abstract
This paper presents the results of a perception experiment exploring the factors influencing the interpretation of Hungarian preverbal (PVF) and syntactically unmarked focus (SUF, focus widening) within the same design. We used a sentence-picture verification task where participants rated the acceptability of utterances as answers to a wh-question on a 6 point Likert-scale. No empirical difference was found between PVF and SUF (focus widening) with respect to the two factors, EXHAUSTIVITY and EXPECTEDNESS. On the one hand, EXHAUSTIVITY had a main effect, i.e. participants preferred the exhaustive readings in the case of both focus structures. Our results imply that the exhaustive interpretation is not necessarily coded as an inherent semantic feature, it rather seems to be pragmatically motivated, at least in a context where it is primed by the presence of an introductory wh-question. On the other hand, EXPECTEDNESS as a factor did not influence the ratings in either case.
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