Hungarian is a highly agglutinative language which uses various affixes, mainly suffixes, to change the meaning of words and their grammatical function. Verbs are conjugated according to definiteness, tense, mood, person and number. Neutral Hungarian sentences have a subject-verb-object word order, like English. Hungarian is a null-subject language and so the subject does not have to be explicitly stated. Word order is determined not by syntactic roles but rather by pragmatic factors. The four parts that a sentence usually contains are topic, focus, verb and the rest; however, any of the four parts may be empty.
The topic contains a phrase or phrases that the speaker considers to be known and are used to introduce the topic of the statement, equivalent to "as far as X is concerned,...". The focus attracts the attention to an element of the event that is considered to be unknown, or it may be a refutation to a possible opposing belief. If a focus is present, the verbal prefix will be put after the verb (vitt el is used instead of elvitt). If there is no verbal prefix, there may be ambiguity in writing since the phrase before the verb may be either a topic or a focus. Hungarian is an agglutinative language. Most grammatical information is given through suffixes: "on the table" = asztalon (space relation), "at 5 o'clock" = öt órakor (time relation).
Magyar nyelvtan alapfogalmai és gyakori jelenségek
In Hungarian, the endings are common mostly for endings of pronouns with suffixes and postpositions, possessive endings of nouns and endings of verbs. "Maga" when a higher ranking person speaks to a lower ranking person with formality. "Ön" when a lower ranking person speaks to a higher ranking person with formality. Front-back vowel harmony is important in Hungarian morphophonology. Certain suffixes also distinguish between front unrounded vowels and front rounded vowels. Most (if not all) morphological word endings in Hungarian for verb conjugations (definite and indefinite), possessive suffixes and 'case-related' postpositions can be thought of as 'templates' that are, in turn, 'filled in' with vowels.
For example, 'bVn' would be the template for the postposition meaning 'in' (with 'V' being the 'fill-in' vowel position) and it can be 'filled in' with either 'a' (for back vowels), thus forming 'ban,' or with 'e' (for front vowels), thus forming 'ben'. On the other hand, 'hVz' would be the template for the postposition meaning 'to' and this can be 'filled in' with 'o' (back), 'e' (front unrounded), or 'ö' (front rounded). The particular vowel or vowels taken by a template must mostly be memorized by a learner of Hungarian, but certain patterns can be noted by observing the particular phonological makeup of the consonants in the template. Note that the stem-final a and e, as well as o and ö in foreign words, are lengthened before suffixes: alma → almát, mese → mesét, pianó → pianót, Malmö → Malmőt. It can be seen the members of these pairs/triads agree mostly in height and length but differ in backness. In the cases of o vs. e is used in two of the groups.
Whenever i is used in a suffix, it is usually an invariant suffix. Link vowel o/e/ö on stems ending with a consonant, with link vowel a for certain back-vowel noun stems, e.g. *: Its suffix may agree with any of the preceding variants, e.g. Personal suffixes can have various uses in Hungarian grammar. The házam, mézem, földem group has another special feature as well: they always use a link vowel in the accusative, independently of their endings (e.g. This difference often disambiguates meanings, e.g. An extreme example is the longest Hungarian word 'megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért' (means 'due to your repeatedly not being possible to be desecrated').
This word contains a great many inflexions, prefix, suffix, etc. If postpositions are used with personal pronouns (cf. "to me"), most of them amalgamate with the suffixes expressing the person. Certain standard postpositions are derived from a noun + 3rd person singular possessive suffix + case ending, e.g. apám révén "by the help of my father". Most postpositions govern the nominative case; the exceptions are listed below. Some postpositions may also precede the noun, thus functioning as prepositions: át (over/across), keresztül (through), együtt (together with), szemben (opposite), túl (beyond), e.g.
Adjectives are unmarked for case. Attributive adjectives are unmarked for number but predicative adjectives are marked: piros almák ("red apples") but Az almák pirosak. The suffix -an/-en/-n is used to form adverbs of manner from adjectives. There is also a suffix, -va/-ve, which is used to derive adverbs from verbs. Úszva jött ide. In Hungarian adverbs can be used predicatively with van ("is"): Korán van. ("It's early.") Nyitva van. Some degree adverbs are formed from adjectives. -on/-en/-ön/-n, e.g. -vá/-vé, e.g. Back-vowel adjectives use a as link vowel (as in magasabb), while front-vowel ones use e (e.g. hidegebb "colder").
The -kor - at what time, e.g. -onta/-ente/-önte - every ..., e.g. múlva (postposition) - in ... time, e.g. 3rd singular possessive suffix with past tense, e.g. 10 éve költözött el. -val/-vel + ezelőtt with past tense, e.g. 10 évvel ezelőtt költözött el. "Hány óra (van)? Mennyi (most) az idő?" ("What time is it? 8.20 - Nyolc óra múlt húsz perccel. 8.50 - Tíz perc múlva kilenc óra. 3rd singular possessive ending with present tense, e.g. 3 éve lakom itt. 3rd singular possessive ending with negative past tense, e.g. 10 éve nem láttam. accusative with dynamic verbs, e.g. 2 órát segítünk. ("We're helping for 2 hours."), 2 órát fogunk segíteni ("We're going to help for 2 hours."), 2 órát segítettünk. -ig with stative verbs, e.g. 5 évig laktam Londonban. ("I lived in London for 5 years."), Egy percig sem maradok itt!
The -ra/-re structure also exists, but it's rarely used in this sense since it may be ambiguous with the "by (before)" meaning. For example, Három napra ment el. ("He left for three days.") Then again: Három napot/napig volt távol. Ki? is the basic question word for a person ("who?"), and mi? is the basic question word for a thing ("what?"). If it is meaningful, they can take the full range of case and noun suffixes: kit?, miben?, miképp? mi + ért ("for the purpose of") gives the question word miért? Milyen? is used to ask for a description and can be used either to ask about a whole noun phrase (Milyen a tanárod? "What is your teacher like?") or as a determiner (Milyen lakást akarsz? "What kind of flat do you want?").
The strict three-way distinction in direction that occurs in the positional suffixes also occurs in the question words: hol? ("where?"), hova? /hová? ("where to?") and honnan? Hány? is used to ask questions about numbers ("how many?"), and mennyi? is used to ask about quantities ("how much?"). If it is meaningful, they can take the full range of case and noun suffixes, and hánnyal?, hánykor?, mennyibe?, mennyiért? hány?
A short positive answer to a yes-no question is often given by repeating the verb particle (or the full verb, if it has no particle), rather than by using the words Igen ("Yes"). Elment? - El. ("Has he left? - He has." Literally "[He] away-went? Látta a filmet? - Látta. ("Did he see the film? - He did." Literally "[He] saw the film? Nem. (this option may sound rude) / Nem ment el. / Nem, nem ment el. Tag questions are made by adding ugye to the beginning or end of a statement: Elment, ugye? or Ugye elment? ("He has left, hasn't he?").
Subordinate clauses are often used with an antecedent in the main clause, e.g. Kabátot hozott, mert fázott. /Azért hozott kabátot, mert fázott. Relative clauses usually have an explicit antecedent in the main clause, e.g. Attól félek/tartok, (hogy) nem mehetek el. This article references Practical Hungarian grammar and related sources as a concise guide to the basics of Hungarian grammar.