Christen Allen
Hungarian (Magyar)
1. Introduction
Hungarian is part of the Finno-Ugric branch of Uralic language family which also
includes Finnish and Estonian among others. Hungarian Kingdom was established in the
Carpathian Mountains around 1000 AD. The first surviving Hungarian text dates from 11921195 AD. Today Hungarian has the largest number of speakers of any language in the Uralic
family with approximately 14 million speakers. Hungarian speakers are mostly centered in
Hungary but there are significant Hungarian communities in surrounding countries as well as
the United States. Several dialects exist with the most substantially different dialect being
Csángó, a dialect in Romania with the most longstanding separation from Hungarian.
Hungarian is an agglutinating language employing heavy suffixation. These suffixes are
usually added to auxiliary vowels making Hungarian morphology highly transparent. There is
no grammatical gender in Hungarian. The passive voice is no longer used. Instead, many
stems are paired for transitive-active and intransitive-passive meanings. The basic word order
is SOV (subject – object – verb) but order is essentially free resulting in a rich inflectional
system with up to 20 case markers.
2. Inflection
2.1. Nominal Inflection
Nouns in Hungarian are inflected for case and number and possession. The order of
suffixation is rigid in Hungarian. Plural suffixes are added first then the personal possessive
marker and finally the case marker. Auxiliary vowels may be inserted between any and or all of
these suffixes and the stem depending on the particular phonetic and morphological
environment found at these boundaries.
There are two plural suffixes: /k/ and /i/ whose use depends on the presence or
absence of a personal possessive suffix or pronoun. Both suffixes can be used with case
suffixes. /k/ is used when the possessive pronoun or suffix is not present. Examples (1) and (2)
are formed from the singular form [køɲv] which means ‘book’.
(1) [køɲvek] ‘books’
(2) [køɲveket] ‘books (acc.)’
The /e/ added before both suffixes is an auxiliary vowel added during derivation but is not part
of the morphemes themselves.
The second possible suffix, /i/ is used when personal possessive suffixes are present
and with possessive pronouns formed with the /ee/ possessive suffix. Example (3) shows /i/
with the personal possessive suffix /m/ and (4) shows /i/ with a first person singular possessive
pronoun formed with the /ee/ suffix.
(3) [køɲveim] ‘my books’
(4) [az eɲeeim] ‘mine (pl)’
Personal possessive suffixes are suffixed after the /i/ plural suffix. There are six
possessives in Hungarian based on the person and number of the possessor: 1st, 2nd, 3rd
persons for both singular and plural.
(5) a. /m/ ‘my’
b. /d/ ‘your (sg)’
c. /null affix/ ‘his/her’
d. /nk/ ‘our’
e. /to,e,øk/ ‘your (pl)’
f. /k/ ‘their’
/køɲveim/ ‘my books’
/køɲveid/ ‘your (sg) books’
/køɲvei/ ‘his/her/its books’
/køɲveink/ ‘our books’
/køɲveitek/ ‘your (pl) books’
/køɲveik/ ‘their books’
Vowels noted in superscript represent a choice of vowel based on the system of vowel
harmony. All affixes that contain vowels have two or three allomorphs.
Pure-relational1 suffixes are the third type of suffixes that are added to nouns. In general
these suffixes indicate location. They are added to the nominative stem-form unless the noun
has an oblique stem-form. Many nouns in Hungarian have an oblique stem-form with extensive
rules governing the use and formation of the oblique stem. Since the oblique stem system is so
vast, I will not mention it further here and instead limit my remarks to the pure-relational
suffixes involved in nominal inflection.
Several of the pure-relational suffixes require the use of an auxiliary vowel:
(6) a. /n/ ‘on’
b. /nkeent/ = distributive
c. /nta,e/ = distributive-repetitive
d. /t/ (/tt/) = suffix of direct object and also of place (on, at)
The other suffixes do not require the use of an auxiliary vowel but attach directly to the
noun stem.
(7) a. /ig/ ‘as far as’
b. /eert/ ‘for’
c. /u,yl/ ‘in the manner of, like, as’
d. /boo,øøl/ ‘out of’
e. /roo,øøl/ ‘from off of’
f. /too,øøl/ ‘from the outside of’
1
Also called local cases. Robert Hall, Jr. suggests 20 pure-relational suffixes while more current literature suggests 18 cases.
g. /naa,eel/ ‘by, at the house of; than’
h. /vaa,ee/ ‘to’ : /v/ assimilates with final consonant
i. /ba,e/ ‘into’
j. /ba,en/ ‘in’
k. /la,eg/ ‘by; as; -ly’
l. /na,ek ‘to’
m. /ra,e/ ‘onto’
n. /va,el/ ‘with’ : /v/ assimilates with final consonant
o. /ho,e,øz/ ‘ toward’
When these suffixes are used with a personal possessive suffix they form a separate word that
uses a special form of suffix, the oblique stem, as seen with the example of (7)d.
(7) b. /boo,øøl/ ‘ out of’ ~ oblique stem /beløøl/ː [beløølem] ‘out of me’
Nominal inflection is quite complex in Hungarian and I have focused here on only a few
aspects including plural, personal possessive and pure-relational suffixation.
2.2 Pronominal Inflection
There are six personal pronouns in Hungarian with distinct forms for accusative and
plural in 1st and 2nd persons.
(8) Nominative:
S
1: /een/ ‘I’
2: /te/ ‘you (sg)’
3: /øø/ ‘he/she/it’
PL
/mi/ ‘we’
/ti/ ‘you (pl)’
/øøk/ ‘they’
(9) Accusative:
S
1: /engem/ ‘me’
2: /teeged/ ‘you (sg)’
3: /øøt/ ‘him/her/it’
PL
/minket/ ‘us’
/titeket/ ‘you (pl)’
/øøket/ ‘them’
The personal pronouns do not take personal possessive suffixes or pure-relational suffixes.
Instead they use the /ee/ suffix mentioned above to form possessive pronouns.
Possessive pronouns are formed by adding /e(e)/ to the stem of the singular possessive
pronouns and then adding the appropriate personal possessive suffix. To form the plural
possessive pronouns the plural suffix /i/ is added to the singular possessive pronoun and
followed by the personal possessive suffix.
(10) a. /eɲ+ee+m/ ‘mine (sg)’
b. /eɲ+ee+i+m/ ‘mine (pl)’
The semantic difference between (10) a and b refers the amount of what is being possessed.
/eɲeem/ refers to one object that is “mine” whereas /eɲeeim/ refers to multiple objects that are
“mine”.
Hungarian demonstrative pronouns are more numerous than their English counterparts.
There are two basic demonstratives from which the others are formed through prefixation: /ez/
‘this’ and /az/ ‘that’. The other pronouns are /emez/ ‘this here’ and /amaz/ ‘that there’; /uɟanez/
‘the same as this’ and /uɟanaz/ ‘the same as that’. These pronouns can take the plural suffix /k/
and the accusative /t/ directly. The pure-relational suffixes are added to these demonstrative
pronouns to indicate spatial relations.
Suffixes other than /k/ and /t/ have assimilation of the final consonant of the stem with
initial consonant of suffix such as in (11).
(11) /az/ + /ban (7j)/ = /abban/ ‘in that’
(12) /az/ + /val(7n)/ = /avval/ or /azzal/ ‘with that’
/v…/ initial suffixes can assimilate with either consonant the stem final consonant or the initial
/v/ of the suffix as seen in (12). While both forms are possible the latter is more frequently
observed.
2.3. Verbal Inflection
Hungarian verbs are inflected for tense, mood, personal and number agreement
depending on the “conjugation”. There are three tenses: past, present and future. Only past
and present remain in use today. Future is included here because of its role in forming the
future participle which will be discussed later. The term ‘voice’ here is used to refer to
subjective and objective agreement. Verbs are marked to show three different versions of this
agreement: subjective or indefinite, middle and objective or definite. The moods in Hungarian
are subjunctive, indicative, conditional and imperative. Finally verbs are inflected to show
personal and number agreement for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person singular and plural. Suffixation
proceeds in this order: ROOT (+ auxiliary vowel) + tense/mood + auxiliary vowel + personal
ending. The first auxiliary vowel listed here in parentheses is optional.
2.3.1. Tense
Tense is used to delimit the time of the action. There is no distinct morpheme for
present tense. Future is marked by /nd/ and always takes an initial auxiliary vowel. The past
tense is marked by /t,tt/2. Although not always used, auxiliary vowels do play a role in the
affixation of tense and mood morphemes. The choice of vowel depends on the stem ending
/t/ is added directly throughout 6 persons to /j, l, n, ɲ, r/. /tt/ is added with auxiliary vowel to roots ending in CC,
VV+t, V+t.
2
and the beginning of the suffix as well as alternating to match the vowel harmony of the stem.
While certain auxiliary vowels can be correlated to specific tenses and moods these
correlations are not so strong as to permit inclusion of the vowel in the tense or mood marker.
2.3.2. Conjugations
There are two so called conjugations used in Hungarian. This means that there are
technically three inflectional paradigms for personal and number agreement on the verb,
subjective (also called indefinite), middle and objective (also called definite). I will include the
suffixes for the middle conjugation although it is only distinguishable from the subjective in the
third person singular and therefore is often not included in current discussions of the subject.
Traditional explanations for these subjective and objective conjugations suggest that the
definiteness of the object NP triggers objective agreement on the verb while indefinite object
NPs and intransitive sentences use subjective agreement. Bartos (1997) suggests that these
inflectional paradigms are sensitive not to definiteness but to transitivity on the idea that verbs
with indefinite NPs are intransitive. The picture is further complicated by the possible stylistic
use of the subjective or the objective conjugation. Both can be used with the same object NP
to give either a specific or non-specific interpretation. The inflectional paradigms for these
conjugations are listed under personal and number agreement.
2.3.3. Mood
There are four moods that are inflected on the verb: indicative, subjunctive, imperative
and conditional. The indicative mood is not individually marked but is fused with the tense
marking. The subjunctive and imperative are both shown by the addition of /j/ directly to the
verb stem as in (13). The conditional is formed by adding /n/ directly to the verb stem as in (14)
a and b.
(13) /mergírjam/
(14) a. /adnám/ ‘I’d give’
b. /kérnék/ ‘they would ask’
The subjunctive, imperative and conditional moods act like tense in Hungarian in that they
replace the tense marker as seen in (13) and (14).
2.3.4. Personal and Number Agreement
Morphemes marking personal agreement vary greatly. The same consonant can be
used to indicate different persons. Sometimes the distinction can be made by the auxiliary
vowel used. However, since auxiliary vowels are not always used the distinction cannot always
be made. There are essentially two inflectional paradigms (excluding middle) based on the
subjective or objective conjugations. Within these paradigms the morpheme marking a
particular person depends on the tense and mood used. For the first person singular /k/ is
used in the subjective present and /m/ is used in the subjective past and the objective and
middle voices with all tenses. Second person singular has four possible morphemes: /s/ in the
subjective present and future, /l/ in the subjective past, the conditional, the imperative and the
middle present, /d/ in all tenses of objective and a null affix in the subjective imperative. The
third person singular is marked by a null affix in all tenses of the objective and the subjective,
/k/ in all tenses of the middle and /n/ in the subjective imperative. The first person plural is
marked by /nk/ in all tenses of the subjective and /k/ in all tenses of the objective. The second
person plural has two morphemes: /to,e,øk/ in the subjective and objective present and /to,ek/ in
all other tenses. Lastly, the third person plural is marked by two possible morphemes: /na,ek/ in
all tenses except subjective past and /k/ used in subjective past and all tenses of the objective.
Table 1 gives a concise representation of all the possibilities. Morphemes listed in parentheses
are possible variations.
Table 1
1st sg
2nd sg
3rd sg
1st pl
2nd pl
3rd pl
Subjective
k (m)
l (s, --)
-- (n)
Personal Endings of Verbs
Middle
m
l
k
nk
to,e,øk (to,ek)
na,ek (k)
Objective
m
d
-k (nk)
to,e,øk (to,ek)
k
2.3.5. Non-finite forms
The infinitive of the verb is formed by adding the suffix /-ni/. An auxiliary vowel, a or e is
added between the stem and the suffix is the stem ends in a consonant cluster.
(15) /mond-/ ‘say’  /mondani/ ‘to say’
There are three participles (verbal adjectives) in Hungarian: present, past and future.
The present participle is formed by adding the suffix /oo,øø/ to the verb root.
(16) /taniitoo/ ‘one who is teaching; teacher’
The future participle is the root plus the future /nd/ suffix plus the present participle suffix /oo,øø/.
(17) /jøvendøø/ ‘to come, future’ from /jøn/ ‘come’
As always auxiliary vowels can be used in the formation of the future participle. The past
participle is marked by the /(t)t/ suffix and is identical to past subjective 3rd person singular.
(18) /tistelt/ ‘honored’ from /tistel/ ‘to honor’
There are two gerunds in Hungarian, past and present.
(19) /akar-/ ‘desire’  /akarvaan/ ‘having desired’
(20) /akar-/ ‘desire’  /akarva/ ‘desiring
Both are formed through the addition of a suffix to the verb root. The suffix used in the past
tense is /vaa,een/ as in (19) and the suffix for the present gerund is /va,e/ as shown in (20).
3. Derivation
3.1. Word Formation
Word formation in Hungarian is performed by derivational suffixation or compounding. In
this section I will look at a few brief examples of word formation by suffixation. The suffixes and
examples listed here are by no means an exhaustive list of derivational suffixes in Hungarian;
rather they are intended to provide the reader with the basic processes involved and some of
the possibilities. Derivational suffixes are attached to the word-stem or root of the word. I will
show examples of nouns from nouns, nouns from verbs, nouns from adjectives and verbs from
nouns.
Diminutives are a good example of forming nouns from other nouns using suffixation.
Example (21) gives the diminutive suffixes and some examples of their use.
(21) a. /(a,e)tʃ/
b. /(i)ka,e/
c. /(a,e)cka,e/
d. /i/
e. /(i)ca,e/
f. /(i,u)s/
/køvec/ ‘little stone’
/baaraaɲka/ ‘little lamb’
/uracka/ ‘dandy’
/baaci/ ‘uncle’
/gerlice/ ‘little dove’
/kutus/ ‘doggie’
Hungarian has approximately six diminutive suffixes with various allomorphs depending on the
vowel harmony of the stem. The vowels listed in parentheses in (21) a and c represent
auxiliary vowels included or omitted based on the noun stem. The /i/ in (21) c and e seems to
be included or omitted based on the speakers preference.
The feminine suffix /nee/ is used to indicate the wife of a particular person.
(22) /elnøknee/ ‘wife of the president’
(23) /varroonee/ ‘seamstress’ from /varroo/ ‘sewer’
This can also be used occasionally to indicate a woman in a given occupation as in (21). This
use of the suffix is fairly limited. A woman in a given profession is generally denoted by a
compound with /nøø/ meaning woman. The occupation of queen is denoted by /kiraaj-nøø/
literally meaning ‘king woman’.
A second group of derivational suffixes forms nouns from verbs. There are many
suffixes that can be used to form nouns from verbs. I will list only a few of the more productive
suffixes. The two suffixes in (24) and (25) show the action or the verb or the result of the
action.
(24) /aa,ees/
[iiraas] ‘writing’ from /iir/ ‘to write’
(25) /(a,e)t/
[eelet] ‘life’ from /eel/ ‘to live’
The suffix in (24) is very productive in Hungarian being able to attach to essentially any verb.
This suffix expresses the action of the verb as a single act whereas the suffix in (25) expresses
the action of the verb as a whole.
The doer, result or means of an action can be formed with at least 10 different suffixes
added to the stem of the verb.
(26) /maa,eeɲ/
(27) /aa,eej/
(28) /(a,e)deek/
/tanulmaaɲ/ ‘study’ from /tanul/ ‘to learn’
/rejteej/ ‘riddle’ from /rejt/ ‘to conceal’
/nemzedeek/ ‘generation’ from /nemez/ ‘to
beget’
Examples (26), (27) and (28) give some of the suffixes used in this category. All three are
considered productive in Hungarian. Because of the exhaustive amount of suffixes that can be
used to form such nouns from verbs I have only listed three to give the reader an idea.
Nouns can also be formed from adjectives. The process is very simple and productive
in Hungarian since all adjectives can be used directly as nouns without any derivational affix.
The adjective is simply inflected following the nominal inflection system.
Creating verbs from nouns is also fairly common in Hungarian. There is one main suffix
to form verbs, the infinitive /ni/.
(29) /halaas/ ‘fisherman’  /halaasni/ ‘to fish’
Some nouns can take /ni/ directly as seen in (29) whereas there are certain nouns that require
the addition of an intermediate suffix.
(30) a. /a,est/
b. /(s)ko,e,ød/
c. /ko,e,øz/
d. /iit/
/ragastani/ ‘to attach’ from /rag/ ‘affix’
/katonaaskodni/ ‘to be a soldier’ from /katona/
‘soldier’
/barratkozni/ ‘to be friends with’ from /baraat/
‘friend’
/sakiitani/ ‘to tear, cut’ from /sak/ ‘section’
e. /(i)z/
f. /(o,w,ø)l/
g. /zo,e,øl/
/zongoraazni/ ‘to play the piano’ from /zongora/
‘piano’
/hegedylni/ ‘to play the violin’ from /hegedyy/
‘violin’
/keebzelni/ ‘to represent’ from /keep/ ‘picture’
The suffixes in (30) are the intermediate suffixes required to form the infinitive form of a verb
from a given noun. The choice of which suffix is used depends on the noun-stem being
modified. Vowels are also subject to vowel harmony resulting in several allomorphs for each
suffix.
4. Compounds
Compounds are very productive in Hungarian. They are formed by simple
concatenation and excluding a few rare examples, are all endocentric and right-headed.
(31) N+N: adó + kártya ‘taxcard’
(32) A+N: fehér + gazdaság ‘white/legal economy’
(33) N+A: euro + kompatibilis ‘euro compatible’
(34) A+A: bal + liberális ‘left-liberal’
Noun-noun compounds are the most productive since any nouns can combine to form new
compounds. Other patterns of compounding such as adjective-adjective, adjective-noun or
noun-adjective are possible but are typically less productive. Verbal compounds do exist but
they represent a special case that will be handled later.
Basic compound inflection is fairly simple but does include some atypical patterns
based on semanitics. In noun compounds the head is inflected for number, case and
possession. Since Hungarian nouns are right-headed the inflection suffixes are added to the
last noun of compound nouns as seen in (36).
(36) [meerek-poharak] ‘cups of poison’ from /meerek-pohaar/ ‘cup
of poison’
Possessive compounds are formed by adding personal possessive suffix to the compound.
(37) a. /has-kulcom/ ‘my house-key’ from /has-kulc/ ‘house-key’ :
meaning the key is mine but not necessarily the house.
b. /haazam kulca/ ‘my house key; the key of my house’
Unlike regular nominal compounds possessive compounds can show inflection on only the
head or on both consituents depending on the intended meaning. Inflecting both constituents
can shift the focus of the possession to either element of the compound.
4.1 Verbal Compounds
Verbal compounds such as noun-verb, verb-noun or verb-verb are atypical for
Hungarian. They were artificially coined during the language reform revolution of the
nineteenth century and they are completely unproductive.
(38) eszik-iszik ‘to eat and drink’  evett-ivott ‘he/she ate and drank’
As seen in (38) verbal compounds are unique in that they are coordinative, meaning they are
two-headed and therefore they both take inflectional suffixes during verbal inflection.
5. Conclusion
Hungarian morphology is made up of a rich inflectional system using mostly
agglutinative suffixes. Nouns and pronouns are inflected for case, number and possession and
verbs are inflected for tense, mood and personal and number agreement involving separate
subjective and objective conjugation paradigms. Infinitives, participles and gerunds make up
the non-finite forms of verbs. Derivational morphology plays a big role in word formation. It is
accomplished through the addition of various suffixes. Productive types of derivational word
formation include creating nouns from nouns, nouns from verbs, nouns from adjectives and
verbs from nouns. Compounding is also a productive way of forming new words with nounnoun compounds being extremely productive. Other compounds involving adjectives and
nouns are possible but are less productive and verbal compounds are completely
unproductive.
Many aspects of Hungarian morphology have not been addressed here due to the
modest nature of this sketch and the extreme complexity of Hungarian. My intention has only
been to give a brief description of some of the bigger elements of the morphology and illustrate
some of the processes involved.
References:
Bartos, Huba. 1997. On 'Subjective' and 'Objective' Agreement in Hungarian. Acta Linguistica
Hungarica, 44(3-4), 363-384.
Brown, Keith. 2006. Hungarian. Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. 2nd ed. Vol. 5, pp.
429-440. Oxford: Elsevier.
Campbell, George. 2000. Hungarian. In Compendium of the World’s Languages. 2nd ed. Vol. 1,
pp. 711-716. New York: Routledge.
Hall, Robert A. 1944. In Bloch B., Baugh A. C. & Emeneau M. B.(Eds.), Hungarian grammar.
New York: Linguistic Society of America.
Kiefer, Ferenc. 2009. Uralic, Finno-Ugric: Hungarian. In The Oxford Handbook of
Compounding, ed. Rochelle Lieber and Pavol Štekauer. 527-541. Toronto: Oxford
University Press.