Hangsúlya

Hangsúlya is a Hungarian term referring to the prominence given to a syllable within a word or to an entire phrase in speech. The form hangsúlya is used when discussing the emphasis of a specific word or part of a sentence, or the emphasis attached to a syllable in a longer utterance. In linguistic description, hangsúlya helps explain how information is highlighted or contrasted in spoken language.

In phonology, standard Hungarian presents a relatively fixed pattern of hangsúly. The primary stress typically falls on the first syllable of the word, a feature that contributes to the language’s distinctive rhythm. When suffixes are added, the main stress generally remains on the initial syllable of the root, rather than moving to a later syllable. Hungarian does not make phonemic use of secondary stresses; variation in emphasis is usually expressed through intonation, duration, and pitch rather than changes in the stressed position itself.

In discourse and rhetoric, hangsúlya serves to signal focus, contrast, or new information. A speaker may raise pitch, lengthen the emphasized syllable, or alter the rhythm of a sentence to draw attention to a particular word or idea. Such uses of emphasis interact with questions, exclamations, and topic-comment structures to guide listener interpretation.

Orthographically, hangsúlya is not indicated by spelling. Emphasis in writing is typically conveyed through typographic devices (such as italics or bold) or through punctuation and syntactic arrangement rather than through changes in the spelling of words.

See also: stress (linguistics), prosody, Hungarian language.