In this first account of the phonology of Hungarian to appear in English, the authors place an emphasis on descriptive coverage rather than theoretical issues. It provides an interest not only for phonology specialists, but also for a wider audience.

This is the first comprehensive account of the segmental phonology of Hungarian in English. Part I introduces the general features of the language. Part II examines its vowel and consonant systems, and its phonotactics (syllable structure constraints, transsyllabic constraints, and morpheme structure constraints). Part III describes the phonological processes that vowels, consonants, and syllables undergo and/or trigger. The authors provide a new analysis of vowel harmony as well as discussions of vowel length alternations, palatalization, voice assimilation, and processes targeting nasals and liquids. The final chapters cover processes conditioned by syllable structure, and briefly describe a selection of surface phenomena. This authoritative account of the sound pattern of this unique language will interest phonologists and advanced students throughout the world.

This is the first comprehensive account of Hungarian stress and intonation to appear in English. The emphasis is on description, but a large number of theoretical issues are also dealt with in an original way. Hungarian is a Uralic or Finno-Ugric language spoken by over thirteen million people in Central Europe. The study of its stress and intonation will be of special interest to intonationists, phonologists, Hungarian language specialists, and their students at intermediate level and above.

"Hungarian is a unique language, completely unrelated to the languages of its neighboring countries. Its grammar is full of complex features and a vocabulary deriving largely from Asia. Hungarian, the first comprehensive descriptive grammar of the language available in English, covers the morphology, syntax and basic lexicon of Hungarian. A much needed resource for specialists in Hungarian, this volume addresses current issues in language description and applies up-to-date research techniques to the language" --Publisher's description.

This volume presents the results of the largest ever language attitude/motivation survey in second language studies. The research team gathered data from over 13,000 Hungarian language learners on three successive occasions: in 1993, 1999 and 2004. The examined period covers a particularly prominent time in Hungary’s history, the transition from a closed, Communist society to a western-style democracy that became a member of the European Union in 2004. Thus, the book provides an ‘attitudinal/motivational flow-chart’ describing how significant sociopolitical changes affect the language disposition of a nation. The investigation focused on the appraisal of five target languages – English, German, French, Italian and Russian – and this multi-language design made it also possible to observe the changing status of the different languages in relation to each other over the examined 12-year period. Thus, the authors were in an ideal position to investigate the ongoing impact of language globalisation in a context where for various political/historical reasons certain transformation processes took place with unusual intensity and speed. The result is a unique blueprint of how and why language globalisation takes place in an actual language learning environment.

A comprehensive overview of current developments in phonological theory, by providing a number of papers in different areas of current theorizing which reflect on particular problems from different angles. This volume deals with phonological structure above the segmental level, in particular with syllable structure, metrical structure and sentence-level prosodic structure.

Vowel harmony is a well known phonological phenomenon found in a large number of languages spoken mainly in Eurasia and the African continent. In simple terms, vowel harmony is a law which governs the co-occurrence of vowels within a span of utterance, nearly always the word. The contributions of this volume focus on various (not always uncontroversial) aspects of vowel harmony that include typological investigations, phonetic/acoustic experimental studies, descriptions of individual systems, genetic and historical ramifications, and implications for a variety of theoretical models. This volume will prove to be a useful guide to the multifaceted issues posed by an often discussed and quite significant phonological process. This volume will stimulate further discussion and better understanding of the issues raised by the intricate process called vowel harmony.