The paper explicates the notions of topic, contrastive topic, and focus as used in the analysis of Hungarian. Based on distributional criteria, topic and focus are claimed to represent distinct structural positions in the left periphery of the Hungarian sentence, associated with logical rather than discourse functions. The topic is interpreted as the logical subject of predication. The focus is analyzed as a derived main predicate, specifying the referential content of the set denoted by the backgrounded post-focus section of the sentence. The exhaustivity associated with the focus and the existential presupposition associated with the background are shown to be properties following from their specificational predication relation.

This thesis investigates the contrastive predicate construction in Vietnamese under the Minimalist Program (Chomsky, 1995). As an instance of the predicate doubling constructions, it contains two copies of a predicate built around the topic marker thì, in which the one preceding thì is a contrastive topic. It is shown that the relation between the two copies of the predicate is formed by A-bar movement. On the one hand, the dependency between the topic and the lower predicate is unbounded, and can cross a number of finite clauses. On the other hand, their dependency is island sensitive. In addition, the two copies of the predicate are required to be morphologically identical. These pieces of evidence suggest that the two copies of the predicate are links of a movement chain which exceptionally allows thephonetic realization of more than one chain link. In this construction, the two copies of the predicate are obligatorily pronounced because they are associated with specific phonological requirements. Not pronouncing either one of them would lead to the phonological crash. As for the higher predicate or the topic, its phonetic realization is triggered by the [Top] feature of the TopP whose the head is occupied by the topic marker thì. The lower copy, on the other hand, is forced to be pronounced due to the focus feature that it is associated with. This focus feature is derived from the semantic content that the construction conveys. It is argued that of the two copies of the predicate in this construction, the higher one which is the topic provides given information, while the lower copy, in contrast, expresses new information, not given in the context; thus must receive a focus reading and be spelled out. Accordingly, both the two copies are phonetically realized. This present study is the first to study the contrastive predicate construction, an instance of predicate doubling constructions, in Vietnamese. In the process of analysis, some aspects of Vietnamese grammar are introduced to the readers. Theoretically, this study provides a strong empirical support for the copy theory of movement in which copies of a movement are phonetically realized. To some extent, it has made some contributions to the theory of grammar.

Les langues offrent une multitude d’éléments linguistiques pour organiser et délivrer les informations (Jisa, Reilly, Verhoeven, Baruch & Rosado, 2002). Il y a plusieurs manières d’exprimer en mot la représentation mentale des événements. Le locuteur, en fonction des outils linguistiques dont il dispose, choisit les formes qui lui apportent le plus de valeur communicative pour transmettre son message.Notre étude est centrée sur deux connecteurs de l’amharique, -mm et dämmo, qui sont abondants dans la langue, et dans la narration en particulier. Nous avons pour objectif d’examiner, dans une perspective développementale, comment les locuteurs les utilisent, et les fonctions que ces particules ont dans leurs narrations. Nous cherchons à distinguer les fonctions communicatives ou pragmatiques qui sont signalées dans l’énoncé au moyen de ces marques. Pour ce faire, nous avons constitué un corpus de soixante productions narratives d’enfants de groupes d’âges différents (5-6, 7-8 et 10-12 ans) et d’adultes locuteurs d’amharique. Nous avons utilisé le support imagé sans texte « Frog, where are you? » (Mayer, 1969) pour recueillir nos données. Ce matériel expérimental a déjà servi à de nombreuses études développementales dans plusieurs langues (Bamberg, 1987 ; Kail & Hickmann, 1992 ; Berman & Slobin, 1994 ; Kern 1997 ; Akinci, 1999 ; Strömqvist &Verhoeven 2003 ; Jisa, Chenu, Fekete & Omar, 2010 ; Fekete, 2011, Saïdi 2014 entre autres).Les résultats montrent que le clitique -mm et la locution dämmo, bien qu’ils soient tous les deux employés par tous les locuteurs, n’ont pas toujours la même portée selon le locuteur et varient en fonction de l’âge. dämmo, marque principalement le thème contrasté pour montrer la concomitance des événements. Il s’avère être plus maniable pour les enfants par rapport à –mm qui est beaucoup plus complexe, non seulement de par sa structure synthétique mais surtout parce qu’il est multiusage. –mm ancre l’information dans le contexte, il met en exergue le constituant sur lequel il opère. / Languages provide speakers with a wide range of linguistic units to organize and deliver information (Jisa, Reilly, Verhoeven, Baruch & Rosado, 2002). There are several ways to verbally express the mental representations of events. The speaker, according to the linguistic tools he has acquired, selects the one that brings out the most communicative effect to convey his message.Our study focuses on two markers in Amharic, -mm and dämmo, which abound in the language and in narratives in particular. Our aim is to examine, from a developmental perspective, how the speakers use them, and the functions these elements have in their narratives. We seek to distinguish the communicative and pragmatic functions indicated by means of these markers. To do so, we created a corpus of sixty narrative productions of children from 5-6, 7-8 to 10-12 years old and adult Amharic speakers. The material we used to collect our data is a series of pictures without text “Frog, Where are you?” (Mayer, 1969). This experimental material has already been used in many developmental studies and in several languages (Bamberg, 1987 ; Kail & Hickmann, 1992 ; Berman & Slobin, 1994 ; Kern 1997 ; Akinci, 1999 ; Strömqvist &Verhoeven 2003 ; Jisa, Chenu, Fekete & Omar, 2010 ; Fekete, 2011, Saïdi 2014 and many more).The results show that -mm and dämmo, although all the speakers use them both, do not always have the same scope according to the speaker and vary according to the age. dämmo is mainly used to mark a contrastive topic to signal the concomitance of the events. It seems to be easy to use for children compared to -mm which is much more complex, not only because of its synthetic structure but primarily because it is a multi-purpose morpheme. -mm anchors the information into the context, it highlights the constituent on which it operates.

B. Štěpánková K funkci výrazů částicové povahy ve výstavbě textu... ABSTRACT This dissertation is devoted to a specific type of particle unit which we refer to as the actualizer. Actualizers are differentiated from other particles primarily due to a combination of the following properties: the ability to imply a presupposition and the ability to actualize or emphasize a nearby expression. They play an important role in the topic-focus articulation of a sentence by drawing attention to elements with a greater degree of communicative dynamism, not only in focus or contrastive topic, but also in other parts of the sentence. Unlike previous studies which have concentrated mainly on prototypical representatives of these units, this dissertation tries to capture the greatest possible number of actualizers. At the same time, it aims to describe their semantic characteristics, and based on this, it attempts to categorize actualizers into three semantic groups. From this perspective, we can distinguish between restrictive, inclusive, and temporally emphasizing actualizers. These groups can be further divided according to their specific features. The dissertation also analyzes the possible positioning of the actualizers in various places in a sentence and investigates which expressions can occur in the surroundings...