Focus in heritage Hungarian. (2nd January 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hoot, Bradley
• Is Part Of: Language acquisition. Volume 26:Number 1(2019)
• Page Start: 46
• Page End: 72
• Publication Date: 2019-01-02
• Subjects: Language acquisition -- Periodicals; 401.9305
• DOI: 10.1080/10489223.2017.1393078
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1048-9223

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Bilinguals have been shown to differ from monolinguals especially in the realization and interpretation of phenomena that operate at the syntax/discourse interface. Hungarian has a well-known interface structure—identificational focus—which has been widely studied in the theoretical literature but never with bilinguals. The present article fills that gap, using three acceptability judgment experiments to test the realization and interpretation of identificational focus by heritage speakers and L1-dominant native speakers of Hungarian. The results reveal that both groups pattern similarly, showing some vulnerability at the syntax/discourse interface with regard to focus interpretation but less so with its realization. Further, the findings bear on the description of Hungarian focus in the theoretical literature, providing experimental evidence that focus is realized preverbally and that its interpretation is the result of a pragmatic implicature rather than part of the sentence's semantics.