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Hungarian grammar (noun phrases)

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Hungarian language
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cs dz dzs gy ly ny sz ty zs
Phonetics and phonology
Vowel harmony
Grammar, including
noun phrases and verbs
T-V distinction
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This page is about noun phrases in Hungarian grammar.

Contents

Syntax

The order of elements in the noun phrase is always determiner, adjective, noun.

Grammatical marking

Hungarian does not have grammatical gender or a grammatical distinction between animate and inanimate.

Plurality

Hungarian nouns are marked for number: singular or plural.

However, Hungarian uses the plural form sparsely for nouns, i.e. only if quantity is not otherwise marked. Therefore the plural is not used with numerals or quantity expressions. Examples: öt fiú ("five boys"); sok fiú ("many boys"); fiúk ("boys").

In phrases that refer to existence/availability of entities, rather than their quantity, the singular is used in Hungarian (unlike in English): Van szék a szobában "There are chairs in the room", Nincs szék a szobában "There aren't chairs in the room". (The singular may be considered as partitive here.) Also, product names are usually written out in the singular, eg Lámpa "Lamps".

Hungarian also uses a singular noun when the possessor is plural but the thing possessed is singular, eg a fejünk ("our heads", where each person has one head).

The plural noun marker is the suffix -ok/(-ak)/-ek/-ök/-k.

Before possessive suffixes, the plural k appears as i, eg:

When used predicatively, adjectives are also marked for number (see adjective marking). The suffix is -ak/-ek/-k.

Pairs of body parts

Hungarian uses paired body parts in the singular, even if the pair is meant together, and even if several people's pairs of body parts are meant. To speak about one piece of a pair, the word fél ("half") is used. As can be seen, pairs of body parts are considered as one in Hungarian.

láb – leg Singular possessor Plural possessor
Singular possession lába
lit. "his/her leg"
in fact: his/her legs 		lábuk
lit. "their leg"
in fact: their legs
Plural possession lábai (?)
his/her legs 		lábaik (?)
their legs

Note the number of the noun in the following examples:

Tánc közben összegabalyodott a lába.
(lit. "his/her leg") 		His/her legs got tangled up during the dance (with his/her own ones).
Tánc közben összegabalyodott a lábuk.
(lit. "their leg") 		Their legs got tangled up during the dance.
  1. People's own legs got tangled up – or –
  2. People's legs got mutually tangled up with each other's, affecting at most one leg per person – or –
  3. People's both legs got tangled up whether with their own, their partner's or other people's legs. In other words, there remained probably no leg without having gotten tangled up.

Note: if one wants to emphasize the third case (the involvement of people's both legs and their multiple relations), the actual plural number (Tánc közben összegabalyodtak a lábaik, lit. "their legs") might also be used, but the above (singular) option can fully suffice in this case, as well.

Person

Forms for \"you\"

Beside te (plural ti), which are used informally, there are polite forms for the second person pronouns: ön (plural önök) and maga (plural maguk). Ön is official and distancing, maga is personal and even intimate and some people think it has rude connotations. (There are some older forms for you, like kend, which is still used in rural areas.) See in more detail: T-V distinction for Hungarian.

The polite 2nd person forms ön and maga take the grammatical forms of the 3rd person, eg for verbs and possessive suffixes. For example te kérsz (second person, informal), but ön kér or maga kér (second person, formal), just like ő kér (third person).

Impersonal usage

Hungarian does not have a distinct impersonal or generic pronoun (cf English "one"), but there are two ways of expressing this:

Determiners

Articles

Hungarian has definite and indefinite articles. The definite article, a, changes to az before a vowel. The indefinite article is egy, an unstressed version of the word for the number "one". Articles are invariable (ie not marked for number, case, etc.)

Demonstrative determiners

The demonstrative determiners (often inaccurately called demonstrative adjectives in English) are ez a ("this") and az a ("that").

Numerals

Hungarian numbers follow an extremely regular, decimal format. There are distinct words for 1 to 9, 10, 20, 30, 100, 1000 and 1000000. The tens from 40 to 90 are formed by adding -van/-ven to the digit. When the numbers 10 and 20 are followed by a digit, they are suffixed with -on/-en/-ön/-n (on the oblique stem). Compound numbers are formed simply by joining the elements together. Examples: As in English, a number can function as a determiner or as a stand-alone noun. As a noun it can take all the usual suffixes.

Suffixes used only on numerals and hány ("how many?"):

The numeric adjectives do not have an exact equivalent in English. They are used when English uses a construction such as "bus number 11": a tizenegyes busz, "room 303": a háromszázhármas szoba.

Quantity expressions

Suffixes used specifically with numerals, hány ("how many?") and other quantity expressions: The use of the adverbs suffixed with -an/-en/-n is best illustrated by examples: Sokan voltunk. ("There were a lot of us.") Öten vannak. ("There are 5 of them.") Ketten mentünk. ("Two of us went.")

Possession

Possessive suffixes

In Hungarian, pronominal possession is expressed by suffixes applied to the noun. The following suffixes are used for singular nouns:

  Singular Plural
1st person -om/(-am)/-em/-öm/-m
az (én) lakásom
my flat /apartment 		-unk/-ünk/-nk
a (mi) lakásunk
our flat /apartment
2nd person (informal) -od/(-ad)/-ed/-öd/-d
a (te) lakásod
your (singular) flat /apartment 		-otok/(-atok)/-etek/-ötök/-tok/-tek/-tök
a (ti) lakásotok
your (plural) flat /apartment
3rd person
and
2nd person (formal or official) 		-a/-e/-ja/-je
a(z ő) lakása
his/her/its flat /apartment
a(z ön) lakása
your (formal) flat /apartment 		-uk/-ük/-juk/-jük
a(z ő) lakásuk
their flat/apartment
a lakásuk / az önök lakása (!)
your (fml, pl) flat/apt.

The following suffixes are used for plural nouns:

  Singular Plural
1st person -aim/-eim/-im
az (én) lakásaim
my flats /apartments 		-aink/-eink/-ink
a (mi) lakásaink
our flats /apartments
2nd person (informal) -aid/-eid/-id
a (te) lakásaid
your (singular) flats /apartments 		-aitok/-eitek/-itok/-itek
a (ti) lakásaitok
your (plural) flats /apartments
3rd person
and
2nd person (formal or official) 		-ai/-ei/-i
a(z ő) lakásai
his/her/its flats /apartments
a(z ön) lakásai
your (formal) flats/apts 		-aik/-eik/-ik
a(z ő) lakásaik
their flats /apartments
a lakásaik / az önök lakásai (!)
your (fml, pl) flats/apts

The lakása, lakásai type (ie, like the one with a singular possessor) is used in the 3rd person plural except when no pronoun or only the ő is present before it, eg a szülők lakása "the parents' flat /apartment". In other words, the plural -k of the 3rd person suffix is left from the noun if there is a lexical possessor preceding it.

The definite article is usually used. It can be omitted in a poetic or literary style. It may also be omitted at the beginning of the sentence in colloquial speech.

The possessor can be emphasized by adding the subject pronoun, eg az én lakásom ("my flat /apartment"). In this case the definite article must be used. For the 3rd person plural, the 3rd person singular pronoun is used, eg az ő lakásuk (not az ők lakásuk).

Words with -j

Certain consonant-final stems always use the suffixes with -j for a singular noun with a 3rd person singular possessor, eg kalap ("hat"): kalapja ("his/her hat"). This group also uses the -j for a singular noun with a 3rd person plural possessor, eg kalapjuk ("their hat"). The -j is also inserted for a plural noun (with a possessor of whichever person and number), eg kalapjaim ("my hats"), kalapjaid ("your (sg. fam.) hats"), kalapjai ("his hats"), etc.

The two most common types are the following:

Type his/her xxx their xxx his/her xxx's Other examples
Without -j
(see above) 		lakása lakásuk lakásai (all words with
c cs dzs sz z s zs j ny ty gy h)
× × ×
Mostly
with -j 		× kalapuk × hang, papír, program
kalapja kalapjuk kalapjai

The forms in the third column (lakásai) represent the other persons as well, because their declension is formed by the same pattern: lakásaim, lakásaid, lakásai, lakásaink, lakásaitok, lakásaik.

Examples for other (irregular) patterns:

(a) szappana szappanuk szappanai
?szappanja ?szappanjuk ?szappanjai
(b) lexikona lexikonuk lexikonai krém
lexikonja lexikonjuk lexikonjai
(c) × paduk padai
padja padjuk padjai
(d) × ?kabátuk kabátai
kabátja kabátjuk kabátjai
(e) × × barátai
barátja barátjuk × (!)
(f) × ?boltuk × fájl
boltja boltjuk boltjai

As it is shown, there is much variance, but in general, the -j variant is usually safer than the variant without -j among words of this type. (Usually the variant without -j is more traditional and the one with -j is more recent.) An exception is the infrequent type of barát ("friend") where the -j type is incorrect with a plural noun.

Word endings and suffix types

Several endings (c, cs, dzs, sz, z, s, zs, j, ny, ty, gy, h, ie, affricates, spirants, palatal/ized sounds and h) only allow the variant without -j in both singular and plural, as shown in the charts above. – On the other hand, the words that always take the -j variant form a rather small group: only those ending in f or ch.

For the other endings, there are no clear-cut rules (so these forms are to be learnt one by one), only regularities exist. Words with a long vowel or another consonant preceding the ending consonant often take the -j variant, as well as international words do (eg programja, oxigénje, fesztiválja "his/her program, oxygen, festival"). Vowel-dropping and vowel-shortening stems always use the variant without -j, just like most words using -a as linking vowel (eg házat, házak "house": háza "his/her house").

*The endings v, l, r, m, g, k usually take the variant without -j (eg gyereke, asztala "his/her child, table"), but a minority among them take it (eg hangja, diákja "his/her voice, student" but again könyve, száma "his/her book, number").
*For words ending in n, p, t, the regularities are basically similar, but there is wide variance. Words ending in -at/-et (a suffix), however, usually take the variant without -j.
*The majority of words ending in b, d use the -j suffix (eg darabja, családja "his/her/its piece, family" but lába, térde "his/her leg, knee").

Possessive construction with 2 nouns

There are 2 possible forms for a possessive construction with 2 nouns. In both of them the noun which is possessed takes the 3rd person possessive suffix.
  1. The possessor is an unsuffixed noun, eg István lakása ("István's flat /apartment")
  2. The possessor is a noun suffixed with -nak/-nek and the possessed noun is preceded by a/az, eg Istvánnak a lakása ("István's flat /apartment")
The first form is used as default and the second is used to emphasize the possessor or for clarity. It also enables the possessor to be moved within the sentence, eg Ennek a lakásnak sehogy se találom a kulcsát ("I can't possibly find the key of this flat/apartment.") Note the sehogy se találom ("I can't possibly find") wedged in between the parts of the possessive structure.

If the 3rd person plural possessor is a lexical word, not a pronoun (thus the plurality is marked on it), the possession will be marked like the 3rd person singular: a szülők lakása (not a szülők lakásuk) ("the parents' flat/apartment"). In other words, the plurality of the 3rd person plural possession is only marked once: either on the possessor (in the case of lexical words) or on the possession (in the case of pronouns), cf az ő lakásuk (above).

Possessive pronouns

The following pronouns are used to replace singular nouns:

  Singular Plural
1st person az enyém a mienk /a miénk
2nd
person 		(informal)
(formal)
(official) 		a tied /a tiéd
a magáé
az öné 		a tietek /a tiétek
a maguké
az önöké
3rd person az övé az övék

Note: Where two variants are given, the one with a long vowel is more literary.
The following pronouns are used to replace plural nouns:

  Singular Plural
1st person az enyéim a mieink
2nd
person 		(informal)
(formal)
(official) 		a tieid
a magáéi
az önéi 		a tieitek
a magukéi
az önökéi
3rd person az övéi az övéik

-é/-éi to replace possessed noun

The suffixes -é/-éi are used to express possession when the noun is not stated:

Hence comes the unusual vowel sequence: fiaiéi, which means "those belonging to his/her sons". Fia- (his/her son) -i- (several sons) -é- (belonging to) -i (several possessions).

The suffixes are also used to form the question word kié ("whose?").

Positional suffixes

Hungarian follows a strict logic for suffixes relating to position. The position can be "in", "on" or "by". The direction can be static (no movement), movement towards or movement away. Combining these gives 9 different options.

  Interior Surface Adjacency
Static position -ban/-ben
in
lakásban
in the flat /apartment 		-on/-en/-ön/-n
on
lakáson
on the flat /apartment 		-nál/-nél
by, at
lakásnál
by /at the flat /apartment
Movement towards -ba/-be
into
lakásba
into the flat /apartment 		-ra/-re
onto
lakásra
onto the flat /apartment 		-hoz/-hez/-höz
to
lakáshoz
to the flat /apartment
Movement away -ból/-ből
out of
lakásból
out of the flat /apartment 		-ról/-ről
off
lakásról
off the flat /apartment 		-tól/-től
from
lakástól
from the flat /apartment

Note 1: -nál/-nél is also used with the meaning "at the home of" (cf French chez, German bei).

Note 2: -ban/-ben is usually pronounced in the spoken informal speech without the final n, thus coinciding with the into-forms.

Town/city names

For town/city names, the rules for selecting the right group are as follows:
  1. Towns outside the historical Kingdom of Hungary (ie, towns that don't have a native Hungarian name) use the -ban/-ben group
  2. Most towns within Hungary use the -on/-en/-ön/-n group
  3. Approx. fifty towns within Hungary use the -ban/-ben group
  4. *This group includes all town names ending in -n, -ny and -város ("city/town"), most with -m, -i and some with -r. For example Sopronban, Debrecenben; Gárdonyban; Dunaújvárosban; Esztergomban, Komáromban, Veszprémben; Zamárdiban; Egerben, Győrben
A few towns within Hungary traditionally use a different ending, -ott/-ett/-ött/-t, for position, see locative case for examples. This locative, however, always can be replaced by one of the above suffixes. Those towns that can also use the -on/-en/-ön/-n group (eg Pécsett or Pécsen) use -ra/-re and -ról/-ről for movement. Győr, however, where the alternative form is with -ban/-ben, uses -ba/-be and -ból/-ből for movement.

Differentiating place names with suffix groups

The difference of the two suffix group may carry a difference in meaning:

Examples:

Cases and other noun suffixes

A note on terminology

The concept of grammatical cases was first used in the description of Sanskrit and Latin grammar, which are inflected languages. Over the centuries the terminology was also used to describe non-Indo-European languages, with very different grammatical structures from Indo-European languages. Some linguists believe that the concept does not fit agglutinative languages very well. Rather than using the "case" paradigm and terminology for describing Hungarian grammar, they prefer to use the terms "(case) suffixes" and "endings". Despite these opinions, nowadays the term "case" is used by most Hungarian linguists.

The criterion for an ending to be a case (according to today's generative linguistic grammars of Hungarian) is that a word with that ending can be a compulsory argument of a verb. This difference is usually unimportant for average learners of the language.

However, it is useful to know that only actual cases can follow other suffixes of the word (such as the plural or the possessive suffix) and the other noun endings can only be added to absolute stems. For example, lakás|om|mal exists ("with my flat/apartment"), but *lakás|om|ostul doesn't.

Case endings

Assimilation works with -val/-vel and -vá/-vé: the initial sound of these suffixes will change to the preceding sound, if it is a consonant other than v, eg lakás + -val appears as lakással. (In words ending in a vowel or v, there is no change, eg sáv|val "with the lane", hajó|val "with the ship".)

Accusative suffix

After -l, -r, -j, -ly, -n, -ny, -s, -sz, -z and -zs, the accusative suffix is usually added directly to the noun rather than using a link vowel, eg lakást. For the other consonants, a link vowel is used.

The accusative suffix after other suffixes

As shown in the above chart, -ot/(-at)/-et/-öt/-t is the accusative suffix for nouns with no other suffix. However, if the accusative suffix is added to a relative stem, that is, to a noun which already has another suffix (ie a plural or possessive suffix), -at/-et is used. Examples:

Sometimes the quality of the link vowel of the accusative can differentiate between otherwise homonymous words:

Accusative without marking

The accusative can be expressed without the -t morpheme after the first and second person singular possessive suffixes. For example:

Other noun endings

Notes:

Incorrect classifications

The following endings are sometimes counted as cases, but are in fact derivational suffixes, see Adjectives and adverbs

Slight noun irregularities

a link vowel

Certain back-vowel nouns, eg ház ("house"), always use the vowel a as a link vowel where the link vowel is usually -o/-e/-ö, except with the superessive case -on/-en/-ön/-n.

The link vowel -o/(-a)/-e/-ö occurs with the following suffixes:

Theoretical:

Oblique noun stem

Some nouns have a second stem which is used with certain suffixes. This is most commonly derived from the main stem by shortening or elision of the final vowel. A few nouns insert the letter "v" to derive the oblique stem.

It is used with the following suffixes:

Stem with -on/-en/-ön/-n

For -on/-en/-ön/-n, the vowel-shortening base uses the nominative stem, eg héten, but the other types (vowel-dropping and -v- bases) use the oblique stem, eg dolgon, tavon, as it is shown in the examples above.

Also, the back-vowel nouns which use an a link vowel have o as the link vowel instead, eg házon ("on the house").

As noted above, when it is added to tíz ("ten") and to húsz ("twenty") to form compound numbers, eg tizenegy ("eleven"), huszonegy ("twenty-one"), these vowel-shortening bases use the oblique stem.

Differentiating -an/-en from -on/-en/-ön/-n

The suffix -an/-en, used with numbers and adjectives, is not to be confused with the above suffix -on/-en/-ön/-n. Their vowel can only be a or e, even on words which would normally use o or ö: cf. ötön (on the number five) and öten (numbering five), haton and hatan (for the latter form, see Quantity expressions).

Order of noun suffixes

Where more than one type of noun suffix occurs, the plural suffix is first (normally -k but -i with possessives). The possessive suffix follows this and the case suffix is last.

Pronominal forms

Demonstrative pronouns

The demonstrative pronouns are ez ("this") and az ("that"). They can take the full range of case endings. For most suffixes, preservative consonant assimilation occurs.

Subject and object pronouns

Pronouns exist in subject (nominative) and object (accusative) forms.

Because the verb suffix is marked for both subject and object, the pronouns are not usually used, i.e. it is a pro-drop language. The pronouns are used for contrast or emphasis or when there is no verb.

Hence, the English pronoun "you" can have no less than 13 translations in Hungarian.

Cases with personal suffixes

For the other forms which are listed above as cases, the equivalent of a pronoun is formed using a stem derived from the suffix, followed by the personal suffix. For example, benned ("in you") or for emphasis tebenned ("in you") has the stem benn- which is derived from the front variant of the position suffix -ban/-ben.

Note: When the stem ends in a long vowel, the 3rd person singular has a ∅ suffix.

maga and ön do not use these forms. They are conjugated like nouns with the case suffixes, eg magában, önben.

Suffixes that use a back vowel stem:

Suffixes that use a front vowel stem:

No personal forms exist for the other suffixes: -vá/-vé, -ig, -ként, -ul/-ül, -képp(en), -stul/-stül, -onként/(-anként)/-enként/-önként/-nként, -ott/(-att)/-ett/-ött/-t, -onta/(-anta)/-ente/-önte, -kor. Their personal variants can be expressed with circumscription (eg addig ment, ahol ő állt "he went as far as him" > "… as far as where he stood").

Postpositions with personal suffixes

Most postpositions (see there) are combined with personal suffixes in a similar way, eg alattad ("under you").

Note: The personal forms of stand-alone postpositions are expressed with circumscription, eg. rajtam túl "beyond me", hozzám képest "as compared to me".

Personal suffixes at the end of postpositions:

See also the section .

Note:

Postpositions with three-way distinction

Postpositions without three-way distinction

Derived postpositions with possessive suffixes

These below are declined like words with possessive suffixes plus cases:

Placeholders in Hungarian

See Placeholder name

Duplication with demonstrative determiners

When the noun has a plural suffix, a "case" suffix or a postposition, this is duplicated on the demonstrative. As with the demonstrative pronouns, for most suffixes, preservative consonant assimilation also occurs. Examples:

As peripheral phenomena, there also exist non-duplicating forms, like e, ezen, eme, azon and ama (the latter two referring to distant objects), but they are poetic or obsolete (cf. "yonder"). For example: e házban = eme házban = ebben a házban ("in this house"). Ezen and azon are used before vowel-initial words, eg ezen emberek = ezek az emberek ("these people"). The duplicating forms (as in the chart above) are far more widespread than these.

 

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