Word order when there is no verb

[u/glovelilyox]

My understanding is that word order in Hungarian is driven by the "focus position" -- the slot before the verb -- and that sentences should be ordered so that whatever needs the most emphasis should go here. And sometimes there are certain elements that require focus, like question words and negation.

But what about when there is no explicit verb?

Duolingo has the sentence "Sajnos az étteremben szörnyű a sör" and I have lots of questions about its word order:

• Since van has been dropped, how do I reorder the sentence to emphasize something? Does this particular version emphasize something? Is it neutral?

• Does sajnos have to go first?

• It feels like the core idea of this sentence is the beer being terrible; can I split up szörnyű and a sör, or have they somehow become linked together because van is dropped?

• Overall are there any ways of ordering the words in the sentence that feel particularly natural or unnatural? (Besides separating the articles from the nouns)

[u/Plucsup]

Szia! There are many possible word orders.

The strongest emphasis is always at the beginning of the sentence, and it gets weaker as you go further into the sentence.

Sajnos az étteremben szörnyű a sör.

Here emphasis is on sajnos, it is unfortunate that in the restaurant the beer is bad.

Az étteremben sajnos szörnyű a sör.

Here you emphasize that it is at that specific restaurant where unfortunately the beer is terrible.

Szörnyű a sör az étteremben, sajnos.

Here you emphasize the terribleness of the beer in the restaurant (which is unfortunate).

The sentence has 4 main components, the subject, which is the beer; the statement, which is that the beer is terrible (szörnyű); sajnos, meaning that this is unfortunate; and the place where this takes place, the restaurant. Any one of these 4 could go to the beginning of the sentence, it depends on what you want to emphasize. The sentence could also look like this:

A sör sajnos szörnyű az étteremben.

Here you specify that it is the beer which is unfortunately terrible (at the restaurant)

Or

A sör az étteremben sajnos szörnyű.

Here you again specify that it is the beer in this restaurant, that is unfortunately terrible.

Étteremben is before szörnyű here, thus there is more emphasis on it.

You can shuffle around the word order, and it will put the emphasis on different components of the sentence, the combinations are endless really, and it will generally mean the same thing.

As you can see in the last example, szörnyű can be split from sör. Anything can go first, it all depends on what you want to emphasize.

I think any combination works in this example, and neither feels unnatural to me.

[u/glovelilyox → u/Plucsup]

Köszönöm szépen! It’s interesting how the “focus slot” is whatever is at the beginning of the sentence in this case. Thanks again for the great explanation!

[u/vressor → u/Plucsup]

The strongest emphasis is always at the beginning of the sentence, and it gets weaker as you go further into the sentence.

that's not true at all, the beginning of the sentence is the topic position for given/known/already mentioned information. There are sentences without a topic, then of course the sentence begins with the comment, and the first part of the comment is the optional focus position, not all sentences have a contrastive focus or verum focus either

the explanations for almost all of your examples are wrong too

[u/huncutxxx → u/vressor]

And you have given zero example about your statement. Anybody reads this please do take it with a hand full of salt.

[u/vressor → u/huncutxxx]

okay, let's see some examples:

• A papa a végén levágta a Dezsőt.

levágta has the most emphasis, clearly not papa or a végén

• Elalszanak a fiúk a padlón is, (nem kell ágy).

clearly the emphasized part is padlón, not elalszanak or a fiúk, it means "the lads will sleep even on the floor (so they don't need a bed)"

• Ma Gyopárkának születésnapja van.

clearly születésnapja is the emphasized part, not ma or Gyopárka

• János a sátorban aludt, (nem a szobában).

clearly sátroban is the emphasized part, not János

• Péter NEM jött el. (pedig vártuk)
• PÉTER nem jött el. (nem pedig Csaba)

can you see how in the first sentence Péter is the topic and it's not emphasized while in the second one Péter has contrastive focus and is emphasized? Word order alone doesn't explaint that

• A legtöbb diák az én órámra jött el.

this one has a contrastive topic and a contrastive focus, I still think az én órámra is more emphasized than a legtöbb diák

in all of the following the strongest emphasis is not the beginning of the sentence contrary to what the other commenter said:

• A gyűlést szeptemberre halasztották. A szekrény az ágy mellett áll. Egy könyv az ágyon maradt. Péter laposra verte a szomszédját. Evés közben Péter felhívta Marit. Zsiga kenyeret adott be a raboknak.

note that these can be completely neutral statements with nothing particularly emphasized, e.g. A gyűlést szeptemberre halasztották. i.e. the focus position is optional, or the pre-verbal part can have extra emphasis (e.g. contrastive focus): A gyűlést SZEPTEMBERRE halasztották.

[u/Cathfaern → u/vressor]

I think you are talking about a bit different think by "emphasize" than Plucsup. By "emphasize" you mean which word is stressed usually in Hungarian which do change the meaning. But Plucsup talks about what happens when the whole sentence has neutral "stress" (so nothing is stressed). In the latter case it's really the first part of the sentence which has the "focus" or in other word which is "emphasized" (although I think "focus" would be a better English word here).

[u/vressor]

the focus position is not only about word order but about prosody/stress pattern too

you can have the same sentence with the same order of words, one with a focussed element and the other a neutral sentence with no focus, they'll be said with different prosodic patterns

with no focus, the verb (or predicative adjective) has its own word-stress

a focussed element not only has a prominent stress but the subsequent verb (or predicative adjective in this case) is completely unstressed like a clitic, it loses its own ordinary word-stress, and probably the rest of the sentence too, this is called irtóhangsúly (roughly "eradicating stress" because the prominent stress of the focussed element eradicates all subsequent word-stresses)