What are we Speaking of? A New Perspective on the Post-verbal Field in Hungarian

Hungarian displays a characteristic syntax, that within the generative approach was called non-configurational. For this reason its description is at least unusual, and it cannot be taught with the same formal concepts used for most of the other European languages. Functional approaches, with Functional Discourse Grammar among them, seem to be especially useful in both describing and teaching Hungarian, because they allow the interplay between pragmatics, syntax and semantics. This article sets the most important traditional assumptions about Hungarian syntax within the functional approach, concentrating on issues with word order. It is suggested that the so-called post-verbal field is very important. The central claim is that in a Hungarian sentence not only is the context of the expression recognized, given by the Topic and a possible Focus of communication, but also a distinct target of our discourse: a constituent signalling what we are speaking of that facilitates the making of the sentence.