Talk:Hungarian grammar

message: I've written a lot of stuff but I'm not a native speaker and I've only studied Hungarian grammar from a language learner's point of view, never as a linguist, so I need some help, please! Also, my examples always need checking for errors.
Does the "in need of attention" label still apply? If it does, please be specific. I lost the plot trying to read all the discussion on the Hungarian language page. (The case /suffix /ending terminology probably still needs tightening up. It certainly seems strange to have a section on endings which are not cases but to have case names for each of them!)
Is there a logical or traditional order for the "cases" to be listed in?
Would Hungarian correctly be classified as an ergative language?
'ház' isn't a great choice for the examples because it is one of the group which uses 'a' as a link vowel with -o/-e/-ö suffixes. It looks very odd as an illustration! Can anyone suggest an example that follows the standard patterns and can be used with the rarer suffixes such as -nként and -stul?
Would anyone like to write a new section about telling the time? (Assuming we're allowed to address that under "Grammar".) I lived in Hungary for 3 years and never mastered it! There's something about a difference between eg 8.10 as the time now, and for a time in the past or future.
Areas where I'm uncertain and really need to be checked:
#Use of definite and indefinite articles. Not confident enough to write anything!
#Use of subjunctive
#Participles
#Translation for 'szokott' and more examples
#Use of -va/-ve. Can this be used generally as an adverb or only with 'van'? If the former, please provide examples! If the latter, should it really be classed as an adjective? (or a predicative adjective?)
#Are the vowel harmony options correct for -nként?
#Are there proper grammatical terms for the categories which I've kind of made up a name for? These include:
#*-lak/-lek
#*Suffixes with possessive suffixes
#*Special verb suffixes
Questions:
#Is duplication really used with postpositions too?
#Is 'vannak' omitted in the same circumstances as 'van'?
#Is -képp(en) excluded from the list of suffixes for a reason or is it just an omission?
#Are there any other suffixes which use the oblique stem? (see below)
#Does the object have to be singular for -lak/-lek or can it be plural?
#Does the form kiéi exist, eg "Whose are these?"?
#What's the correct translation of "It's Kati's."? Katié van. / Katié. / Az Katié. / Ő Katié. ...
#I think there's a difference between English and Hungarian something like a singular noun is used when plural possessors each have one of something (eg 'a féjünk' = 'our heads'). Is this correct? Does it only apply to parts of the body or does it apply to anything, eg 'a tollunk' = 'our pens'? Or does it only apply in certain grammatical contexts, eg 'We all shook our heads.'
#When -ott/-ett/-ött are used for position at a place, what are used for movement to and from? (eg Is it Győrre and Győrről /Pecsre and Pecsről?)
#Is 'mint' a preposition? I can't think how else to classify it.
#What are all the possible variations for the -stul/-stül suffix? Does it use a link vowel with consonant-ending stems? What does it really mean?
#Does -onta/-ente have a third variation of -önte, at least in theory? This would seem logical to me.
#For -ul/-ül, I can think of the following examples: magyarul, angolul, (other languages), peldául, rosszul, rendetlenül ... So it looks like it can be suffixed to either a noun or an adjective. Is that right? If so, would forms such as 'beszélek magyarul' be considered as noun or adjective suffixes? Does it have productive power as either a noun or adjective suffix or is it better considered to be a word derivation suffix? (I'm making a distinction between a productive suffix such as -ás/-és which can be put onto pretty much any verb stem to make a noun, and a suffix such as at/-et which only makes a noun from specific verbs.)
#I think the suffix -vá/vé can sometimes be put onto adjectives, eg kissé, eléggé. What do these mean and how they are used? Is it a productive pattern or limited to a few words? Gailtb 06:48, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: My grammar questions

message: Thank you for your help in the article and your insightful questions!
*Actually, I'd rather remove the "in need of attention" label. It was put there probably by Gubbubu, because he is convicted that the theory about the Turkic origins of Hungarian is serious enough from a linguistic point of view and that "cases" as such shouldn't be used in connection with Hungarian, but these issues are not treated accordingly in the present version of the article. If you are not afraid of a possible revert war (and a lengthy debate) with him, feel free to remove the label. :-)
*I know of no traditional or classic order for the Hungarian cases; I've never seen such a reference. (The only thing I know is that the Positional suffixes should be mentioned separately as well, like they are now.)
*To my best knowledge, Hungarian is not an ergative language, because the subject of intransitive verbs is in the same case (nominative) as the subject of transitive verbs, and the object of transitive verbs is in a different case (accusative), just like in English. For example: Pista fut. ("Steve is running", intrans. verb, Pista is nom.) Pista kenyeret eszik. ("Steve is eating bread", trans. verb, Pista is nom.), Péter látja Pistát ("Peter can see Steve", trans. verb, Pista is acc.).
*A better sample word instead of 'ház'? Maybe kalap: kalapot, kalapok, kalapon; [poss. sing.] -om, -od, -ja, -unk, -otok, -juk; [poss. pl.] -jaim, -jaid, -jai, -jaink, -jaitok, -jaik. It also has the advantage of having the -j even in all the plural possessive forms (as opposed to házaim etc). Kalaponként and kalapostul also exist. It can be replaced in the article.
*I'll try to sum up the time expressions soon.
To the questions among the areas you feel uncertain:
*5. -va/-ve can be used generally as well, eg úszva jött ide ("he came here swimming")
*6. -nként: kabántonként ("per coat"), sálanként (per scarf"), könyvenként ("per book"), görögönként ("per Greek"), kesztyűnként ("per glove"). So -anként is missing from the variants.
*7. proper terms:
**-lak/-lek: I don't know any terms or descriptions better than "definite conjugation, 1st person singular subject, 2nd person object"
**"Suffixes with possessive suffixes": benned and the similar forms are actually suffixed forms of the personal pronouns. Benned can be tebenned ("in you") as well. (Benne, "in it", can be paralleled with ebben, "in this", ez + ben, which is more regular as far as form is concerned.) Maybe the term "Personal pronouns with suffixes" could be used; I can't found any more specific term. The fact that they are formed with the case suffixes plus the possessive suffixes is another question.
**-hat/-het: "modal suffixes" (A Practical Hungarian Grammar, ISBN  9634720374, p. 62), -at/et/tat/tet: causative suffixes (p. 61)
To your questions:
# ez alatt a ház alatt, yes, it exists (e ház alatt is also possible, but it's somewhat archaic and its usage is limited)
# Yes, it is: Ők tanárok ("They are teachers") but Ők jól vannak ("They are well") or Tanárok vannak a szobában ("There are teachers in the room").
# It's just an omission, but its use is rather similar to -ként.
# Yes, but not among those considered cases: dolognak, dologgal, dologért, dologgá, dologig, dologként, dologul, dologban, dolognál, dologba, dologra, dologhoz, dologból, dologról, dologtól. On the other hand: dolgonként, dolgostul [in theory] *dolgott [but it doesn't exist], *dolgonta [an actual example: hetente from hét], and a regular again: dologkor (?). Also: levelenként, levelestül, *levelett [non-existent], levelente (?) plus the regular last one: levélkor. So the other suffixes requiring the oblique stem are: Distributive case, Sociative case, Locative case, Distributive-temporal case.
# It can be plural too, eg Szeretlek titeket ("I love you people")
# Yes, it exists. (The -éi ending on whatever word is, however, simplified sometimes in colloquial speech to -é, perhaps because some people find -éi too affected.)
# Katié or Az Katié.
# Yes, there is such a difference indeed. It applies to anything, eg tollunk = "our pens" (if each person has only one pen). I think it's used quite broadly.
# Győrött, Pécsett: see Locative case#Hungarian, not mentioned cases are only other words with the ending -vár (Kolozsvár, Székesfehér), which behave the same way as Kaposvár.
#* to and from: Pécsre, Vácra, Kaposvárra (Kolozsvárra, Székesfehérvárra), Vásárhelyre but Győrbe, similarly Pécsről, Vácról, Kaposvárról, Vásárhelyről but Győrből.
#Yes, it may well be a preposition, however uncommon in Hungarian it be.
# Yes, -stul/stül has a linking vowel in these cases, eg kalapostul, székestül, görögöstül. These variants can be inserted in the article.
#* It means "together with", "along with", but its use is restricted. Eg. Kalapostul beleesett a vízbe ("He fell into the water with his hat on"), Családostul elköltözött ("He moved away along with his family").
# Theoretically -önte is possible, the above book mentions it, but I can't think of any other uses of this suffix like naponta, hetente, havonta, évente (per day/week/month/year), among which it doesn't occur. It's not possible with óra, perc or másodperc and is replaced by -nként with them, and since there aren't any other simple bases for time periods, I don't think -önte could practically occur anywhere, but you can insert it, in case I'm wrong.
# Yes, -ul/-ül can be added to nouns as well as adjectives that mean languages. In beszélek magyarul it's appended to the adjective, in my opinion. I think this suffix has productive power since it can be used with any noun if the main verb requires that case. I looked up the form könyvül in Google (which first sounded strange to me) but I found several examples, among them with the following verbs: "serve as sth.", "use as sth.", "accept as sth.", "recommend as sth.", "acknowledge as sth.", "order as sth." [like in "the minister ordered a book as a way of illustration in teaching history"], "keep as sth.", "choose as sth.". The last is perhaps the best example: kedvenc könyvéül/ételéül/játékául/újságjául etc. választotta ("he chose it as his favourite book/food/game/newspaper etc."). So I think it's productive, even though it can be usually replaced by another suffixes, mostly -ként (or -nak/nek with választ).
# Kissé: "somewhat, to some extent"; eléggé: "quite, fairly". Examples: Kissé meglepődött azon, amit látott, "He was somewhat surprised at what he saw", Eléggé népszerű a diákjai között, "He is quite/fairly popular among his students". I think this use of vá/vé is not productive at all, since I can't recall any more examples of it with adjectives.
I wonder if you will update the article accordingly. -- Adam78 00:00, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Answers

message: For me, as a linguist, "tense" properly refers to morphological changes to the verb stem, so leszek is a future tense but fog + infinitive is not. Fog is a model auxiliary. See the article under Sources for the more accurate description of the 2 (main) tenses as past and non-past. (English is like Hungarian in this way. Academic grammatical descriptions refer to past tense and non-past tense. There is no future tense, just various ways of expressing futurity.) Ok to revert? In fact, strictly all the references to "present" tense should be changed to non-past, but that's probably pedantic rather than helpful. A note under "Moods and tenses" would be helpful.
The oblique stem section needs some work. Firstly, the definition needs to say it is a non-predictable stem change. The info about lengthening of vowels for ora etc does not belong in this section because it is entirely predictable. The oblique stems are ones which we poor learners have to learn individually. The examples with -on/-en/-ön/-n are surprising. This needs more explanation. I wonder if there is any pattern. (By the way, could you provide an example where short o is lengthened before noun suffixes? I've never seen that vowel being included in the lengthening rule before.)Gailtb 06:48, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! I can update in a few days time if no-one else does it first. I also have a list of topics still to write up. Could I ask you to think again about an example noun, though? The forms such as "kalapja", ie using "j" after a consonant in the possessive endings are the exception rather than the rule. (One of the points I still need to write up.) The info about the vowel lengthening belongs on the phonology page not here since it is primarily a phonological rather than a grammatical process. Gailtb 18:02, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know statistics about the possessive suffixes, but I thought it was easier for the reader to remove a letter than inserting a plus -j into the words they find. Do you think the barátja/barátai or the lakása/lakásai type is more typical? (Lakásostul and barátostul both exist; the -nként is not critical.) Maybe lakás is better, isn't it? -- Adam78 20:40, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The lakás type is definitely much commoner. Let's use that. Gailtb 21:58, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Futurity and oblique stem

message: I believe you; I also recall what you're saying. In this case, my edit was wrong; I'll thank you for reverting it. However, it is strange for me to call fog a modal auxiliary since it has little modality. Could it rather be called a "temporal auxiliary" instead? I think this type exists, isn't it?
You are right about the oblique stems as well; thank you for the clarification.
The superessive case is treated in my grammar book (Practical Hungarian Grammar, mentioned above) as a separate member of the Hungarian nominal lemma, which has to be learnt with the individual words. Actually, it seems to me that this case only remains identical with the nominative in the 1st type, otherwise it will use the oblique stem. I think this is the pattern, so it might not be necessary to learn it with each and every word.
Short -o lengthened? Actually, it only occurs in those foreign words which are not treated as loanwords, eg allegro, Cicero, peso will be allegrót, Cicerót, pesót. It only affects writing, since these o's are pronounced long with and without suffixes equally. Loanwords as such are written with long ó ab ovo, eg metró, videó, magnó, sztereó, diszkó, fotó, euró. Actually, this lengthening rule affects short ö's as well, eg Malmö will be Malmőt, so it should be inserted in the article.
Adam78 00:45, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! I can update in a few days time if no-one else does it first. I also have a list of topics still to write up. Could I ask you to think again about an example noun, though? The forms such as "kalapja", ie using "j" after a consonant in the possessive endings are the exception rather than the rule. (One of the points I still need to write up.) The info about the vowel lengthening belongs on the phonology page not here since it is primarily a phonological rather than a grammatical process. Gailtb 18:02, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know statistics about the possessive suffixes, but I thought it was easier for the reader to remove a letter than inserting a plus -j into the words they find. Do you think the barátja/barátai or the lakása/lakásai type is more typical? (Lakásostul and barátostul both exist; the -nként is not critical.) Maybe lakás is better, isn't it? -- Adam78 20:40, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The lakás type is definitely much commoner. Let's use that. Gailtb 21:58, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Answers

message: #Is there a distinct difference in Hungarian between 'egy' used as the indefinite article and 'egy' used for the number one? (Eg English uses different stress as well as a different word.)
#Do the towns outside Hungary which used to be part of the empire and /or have Hungarian names (eg Pozsony) use -ban/-ben or -on/-en/-ön/-n?
#For a Hungarian, is there any logic to why the indefinite conjugation is used with a 1st or 2nd person object (which is surely definite)?
#The example Késon van. was corrected to Keso van. but this no longer illustrates the point. I want an -on/-en/-ön/-n adverb which can be used with van. Is Korán van. correct? If not, please suggest a correct example.
#Tízen vannak. or Tizen vannak.?
#Yes, there is different stress in Hungarian, too, e.g. Egy EMber van csak itt "There's only a person here" (not an object or an animal that we expected) but EGY ember van csak itt "There is only one person here" (not more people, as we expected).
#Both occur: Pozsonyban, Bécsben, Nagyszombatban, Brassóban, Trencsénben etc. but Marosvásárhelyen, Nagyváradon, Kolozsváron, Csíkszeredán, Aradon, Kassán, Eperjesen, Lőcsén, Bártfán, Újvidéken etc.
#No, they just seem to coincidence.
#Későn van (written with ő) doesn't exist to my knowledge. Korán van is, however, correct.
#Tízen vannak. with long í (despite the fact í is pronounced short here).
Adam78 02:06, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A few more questions 

message: #I had a go at writing about time but it needs lots of checking and expansion. Also, how would you say these:
#*"I didn't sleep for 36 hours."
#*"I didn't go home for 2 years."
#Is it true that you can use ő to refer to a thing or do you always use az? Eg "I've lost my bag. It's red."
#I think the table of common stems would be better if you leave out the possessive suffixes on nál and allat. They're the same morpheme as the possessive suffix on nouns so I think they make the evidence for what you're saying unbalanced. And I think you could include the indefinite conjugation too, because in the plural it's evidence of the same thing (and the singular shows that this rule doesn't apply across the board).
#Oh dear! If you don't understand what I was trying to say about tripartite systems, then I don't suppose anyone else will. Please rewrite it! A tripartite system is one where there is a 3-way distinction between the subject of an intransitive verb, the subject of a transitive verb and the object. As we know, Hungarian uses the Ø and -t morphemes to mark the noun as being subject or object. However, on the verb, it marks 2 different kinds of subject (eg with -k or -m). There is then overall a 3-way distinction. It must be noted that the 2 kinds of subject are marked on the verb but not on the noun itself. (And of course that the 2 kinds of subject are not exactly the same as in a tripartite system because of the treatment of the subject of an indefinite object.)
#I've got something wrong on the plural possessive suffixes. Do these have variants with -j too? If so, where? Gailtb 20:53, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Time etc 

message: *I'm a bit confused about what you've written. Are you saying that házon is correct rather than házan?
*Even so, I think it's clearer just to say that these words are an exception rather than listing the a suffixes as one of the options. They are definitely exceptions. And if you do list them, you need to do it across the board - noun plural suffixes, possessive suffixes, numeric suffixes, ... everything with that link vowel (except -n?) Gailtb 10:05, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "a" link vowel 

message: Of course you'll be able to check examples in a way that I can't, but I don't think it's true that the only difference for personal suffixes is in the back vowel. I'll try and explain. Some suffixes use a/e and some use o/e/ö. Therefore to check which sort it is, we have to examine a regular back-vowel word and a front rounded word. As far as I know, suffixes cannot exist which have a/e/ö or which have o/e (without ö) (except 2nd plural sometimes!). So the use or non-use of ö as a link vowel is very significant in distinguishing between possessive and personal suffixes (fölöttem not fölöttöm). It's also important in distinguishing between -an/-en/-n and -on/-en/-ön/-n, eg öten /ötön. Gailtb 23:55, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suffix typology 

message: I'm very sorry about this, but I'm not very happy with what we've now got about personal suffixes. I think it was clearer before. The current comparison chart is really stating much more general information. Some of this information, about which harmonic vowels parallel each other, is now given under Morphology. It applies to adjective suffixes as well as verbs and nouns. The rest of the information, about the consonants, is given under Typical sound elements for personal endings. Please can we revert? (Very sorry!) Gailtb 07:45, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Personal and possessive suffixes 

message: Sorry, I don't have any time to work on this for a few months, but I  hope to come back to it eventually. I guess the starting point for cutting the page down would be to move "Noun phrases" and "Verbs" to separate pages and then see how the sizes look. Wikipedia:Article size suggests that up to 50KB may be ok. Gailtb 21:31, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page size 

message: Hello, I wanted to ask, what the difference between the 4th and 5th type of suffixes in that list shall be. It is not true that the Plural ending is always -ak, -ek, -k; there's the -ok (eg. családok) and the -ök variant (eg. rendőrök). Why did you present that in two groups and not in one? --Strommops ð 20:48, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  #Suffix typology 

message: It would be helpful to provide some translations of individual words.  For example, in the "Emphasis" section, János, tegnap, elvitt, két, könyvet, Péternek are mentioned, and while I can figure some of them out, some of them I cannot since I do not speak the language. I have a general interest in languages, and I can't fully understand what is being conveyed in the table without the individual words being mentioned (perhaps in a note above the table).  It would make the subject more understandable to someone who does not know Hungarian.162.40.51.85 (talk) 03:36, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Clarification

message: An extreme example is the longest Hungarian word 'megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért' (means 'due to your continuous pretending to be indesecratable'. This word contains mass of inflexions, prefix, suffix, etc. The core of the word is 'szent', meaning "saint.")
I beg to differ here: just because Hungarian is an agglutinative language, this word should not be declared the longest. It is a non-sensical word itself, but just for the sake of argument I can give you a longer variant by adding one more possessive suffix:
'megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekének' which would then translate into something like 'to that of your continuous pretending to be indesecratable'. 
Nobody knows which is the longest meaningful Hungarian word, these two are surely imaginary ones.--Hhgygy (talk) 19:20, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Minor correction

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thread_title:  External links modified