Contrastive verbs in attributive and nominal structures . 182

The importance of all this becomes obvious when considering nominal and at-tributive comparative examples such as (42), where the verb that carries new information is a lexical one and as such is actually F-marked:

(42) a. ? Mari

‘Mary bought more cats than Peter saw.’

b. ? Mari

‘Mary bought a bigger cat than Peter saw.’

As can be seen, the lexical verb in the subclause (látott) is different from the one in the matrix clause (vett); the sentences are acceptable but marked (the in-dividual ratings of my informants differed as far as the degree of markedness is concerned).

Since the present investigation is not particularly concerned with the theory of focus in general, I do not attempt to address the issue of verbs and focus in detail. As shown by Kenesei (2006), instances where the verb seems to be fo-cussed do not involve the focussing of the V head as such but either the VP or the entire proposition is focussed. This is actually in line with my analysis here

and the examples in this section clearly demonstrate that it is not merely a verb in the subclause that is contrasted with the one in the matrix clause but rather an entire proposition: there are other elements that are contrastive, such as the subject DP in the examples in (42). However, since in the construction under scrutiny, contrastive elements are located above the VP (all thematic vP layers) and elements that are left in the thematic verbal domain are non-contrastive, what really matters to us here is indeed the status of the lexical verbal head. This behaves differently with respect to the ellipsis domain depending on whether there is propositional contrast or not.

In (39), the lexical verb (vett) moves up from a functional v head (assuming a layered analysis of the Hungarian verb phrase, see É. Kiss 2008b, É. Kiss 2009) to T but not beyond, since the F head contains an [E] feature. This means that, in order to derive the constructions in (42), the lexical verb has to move up to F despite the presence of the [E] feature, which regularly does not require verb movement to F. Since the quantified DPs are not present overtly, ellipsis must have taken place, as should be obvious from the discussion in the previous sub-section. Since the lexical verb has to undergo a movement operation that it would not take otherwise, the construction is marked.

Moreover, in (42) the main stress has to fall on the verb in the subordinate clause; this follows from the fact that there are two propositions compared in (42), and the contrast is expressed by the main verb. However, this would not be possible if the DPPéter were located in [Spec,FP] because then the main stress would be assigned to that constituent. Therefore, the DPPéterin (42) has to move to a topic position in order to escape both ellipsis and main stress (see Szendrői 2001 on the extrametricality of topics).

As was mentioned before, contrastive verbs involve the contrast between en-tire propositions and not merely verbal heads; in (42), for instance, the subject DPs in the two clauses are also different. Though contrastive elements tend to appear preverbally, it is also possible to have contrastive elements that follow the verb. Consider the following example:

(43) Nagyobb bigger

macskát cat.acc

vettem bought.1sg

ma, today

mint than

amekkorát how.big.acc

láttam saw.1sg

tegnap.

yesterday

‘I bought a bigger cat today than the one I saw yesterday.’

In this case, the adjunctsma‘today’ andtegnap‘yesterday’ are also contrasted and they are phonologically prominent. In this position, as pointed out by Szen-drői (2001: 53–55), elements receive extra stress by an additional prosodic rule and not by the nuclear stress rule. By default, it is more economical to move a phrase to the FP for stress assignment than to leave it in the VP but the verb

in (43) above is also contrastive and would not receive main stress by default if there were an element in the [Spec,FP] position. This is in line with the analysis given by Kenesei (2006), in that in the case of VP-focus or propositional focus the contrastive elements following the verb are assigned focal stress. Note that this construction is not possible if the verb is not contrastive, that is, when there is no propositional contrast, as shown by (44):

(44) * Nagyobb

‘I bought a bigger cat today than yesterday.’

In this case the adverbtegnap should move up to the [Spec,FP] position in order to give a felicitous construction.

Turning back to (42), there are a number of arguments in favour of the analysis, regarding both of the movement of the lexical verb and the non-focussed nature of the subject DP. Evidence comes from constructions involving a verbal particle;

consider first the following examples that do not involve ellipsis:

(45) a. Mari

‘Mary bought more cats than Peter noticed.’

b. Mari

‘Mary bought a bigger cat than Peter noticed.’

In (45), the comparative subclause contains the verbal particlemeg, which pre-cedes the lexical verb: adopting the analysis given by É. Kiss (2008b), this is be-cause the particle moves to the specifier of PredP. In other words, a verbal particle preceding the lexical verb is in complementary distribution with a focussed con-stituent that would also move to this position (before moving further up to the specifier of the TP and of the FP) and the verbal particle + verb order is indica-tive of the fact that there is no focussed constituent in the [Spec,FP] position and the DPPéterin (45) is a topic (though contrastive). The main sentential stress in

(45) hence falls on the leftmost element of the Intonational Phrase, which is the verbal particlemeg(cf. Szendrői 2001).

The structure of the subclauses in (45) is represented in (46):⁶

(46) CP

C^′ C mint

CP DP_k ahány macskát amekkora macskát

C^′ C TopP DP_j Péter

Top^′ Top TP

meg_i T^′ T látott_l

PredP t_l t_it_jt_k

Since the quantified DP moves up to the [Spec,CP] position, there is no el-lipsis taking place. As there is no FP (there being no focussed constituent) and [Spec,TP] is filled by the verbal particlemeg, main sentential stress falls on this element, which renders a felicitous sentence since the main contrast involved in the comparison is expressed by the verb.

6I follow generally accepted views regarding the structure of a Hungarian finite (subordinate) clause, see for instance in É. Kiss (2002), in that a focussed constituent may be preceded by topics and topics are immediately below the CP-layer. Of course, there are other possible func-tional projections that can otherwise occur but since my examples contain none of them, I am not particularly concerned with whether they are underlyingly present even when they are not overtly filled. Note also that, since I am using a non-cartographic approach, the distinc-tion between various funcdistinc-tional projecdistinc-tions in the syntax is less important here than usually assumed in the literature.

When the verb is not contrastive, the situation is different:

‘Mary saw more cats than Peter noticed.’

b. Mari

‘Mary saw a bigger cat than Peter noticed.’

The subclauses in (47) contain the DPPéteras the focussed constituent; follow-ing É. Kiss (2008a), this DP is located in the specifier of the FP, and the verbal particle does not move up, resulting in the non-neutral verb + verbal particle order. Since the leftmost constituent in this case is the focussed DP, main stress will fall on this constituent; this again renders a felicitous structure as the main contrast in (47) is expressed by the DP. The structure of the subclause is shown in (48):

One of the chief differences between (46) and (48) is that there is no topicalised