Hungarian grammar is the grammar of Hungarian, a Ugric language that is spoken mainly in Hungary and in parts of its seven neighboring countries.
Hungarian is a highly agglutinative language which uses various affixes, mainly suffixes, to change the meaning of words and their grammatical function. These affixes are mostly attached according to vowel harmony.
Verbs are conjugated according to definiteness, tense, mood, person and number. Nouns can be declined with 18 case suffixes, most of which correspond to English prepositions.
Hungarian is a pro-drop language and the subject does not have to be explicitly stated.
Hungarian is a topic-prominent language and so its word order depends on the topic-comment structure of the sentence (that is, what aspect is assumed to be known and what is emphasized).
Word order Neutral Hungarian sentences have a subject–object–verb word order, for example Péter almát eszik (Peter eats an apple). Word order is determined not by syntactic roles but rather by pragmatic factors. Emphasis is placed on the word or phrase immediately before the finite verb.
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 and the rest may contain any number of phrases, but the focus may contain only one phrase.
Emphasis The tables below contain some Hungarian variations of the sentence ("John took two books to Peter yesterday.") Besides the verb, the sentence contains four other elements: János ("John"), Péternek ("to Peter"), két könyvet ("two books") and tegnap ("yesterday"). TopicsFocusVerbThe restSpecial meaningJánostegnap∅elvittkét könyvet Péternek.Two books were taken by John to Peter yesterday. (It was successfully completed, and there is no special emphasis.)Jánostegnapkét könyvetvitt elPéternek.It was two books that John took to Peter yesterday. (As far as John and yesterday are concerned, it was exactly two books that he took to Peter.)János∅tegnapvitt elkét könyvet Péternek.It was yesterday that John took two books to Peter. (John took Peter two books sometime, but it was done specifically yesterday.)∅∅Jánosvitt eltegnap két könyvet Péternek.It was John who took two books to Peter.∅∅Péternekvitt eltegnap János két könyvet.It was to Peter whom John took two books to yesterday.JánostegnapPéternekvitt elkét könyvet.John took two books yesterday specifically to Peter, not to anybody else.∅∅∅ElvittJános tegnap két könyvet Péternek.Two books were taken by John to Peter yesterday. (The action was completed, and the books are at Peter's place now. Emphasis on the action.)Két könyvettegnap∅elvittJános Péternek.Two books were indeed taken by John to Peter. (Perhaps something else was brought to him, as well. However, the two books may not be the most important thing; for example, John may have left Peter's documents at home.)∅∅Két könyvetvitt elJános tegnap Péternek.John took two books and nothing else to Peter yesterday.
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. It excludes the validity of the statement for all other individuals in question and is equivalent to "it was X and nothing else that...".
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. For example, in the sentence Éva szereti a virágokat ("Eve likes [the] flowers"), Éva may be a topic and the sentence may be neutral, or Éva may be a focus and the sentence may emphasize that it is Eve who likes flowers: SentenceInterpretationÉva szereti a virágokat.Eve likes flowers. Szereti Éva a virágokat.Eve likes flowers (despite what someone thinks). Éva szereti a virágokat.Eve likes flowers (and not someone else).Éva a virágokat szereti.Eve likes flowers (and not something else).A virágokat Éva szereti.It is Eve who likes flowers (and not someone else although something else may be liked by someone else). A virágokat szereti Éva.It is flowers that Eve likes (and not something else).
Morphology 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). There is also one grammatical prefix (leg- for superlatives).
Overview of personal endings: typical sound elements In Hungarian, the endings are common mostly for endings of pronouns with suffixes and postpositions, possessive endings of nouns and endings of verbs. (The accusative of pronouns is also given for comparison, but it is less regular.)
PronounCase/postposition stem NounVerbTypical elementNominativeAccusative+ personal suffix+ personal suffix+ possessive suffixIndefinite presentDefinite present"I" etc."me"etc."by/at me" etc."under me" etc."my flat /apartment" etc."I see" etc."I see it" etc.énengemnálamalattamlakásomlátoklátom-m with link vowel -o/(-a)/-e/-ö or -a/-etetégednáladalattadlakásodlátszlátod-d with link vowel -o/(-a)/-e/-ö or -a/-eőőtnálaalattalakásalátlátja-a/-emiminketnálunkalattunklakásunklátunklátjuk-nk with link vowel -u/-ütititeketnálatokalattatoklakásotokláttoklátjátok-tok/-tek/-tökőkőketnálukalattuklakásuklátnaklátják-k "You" (formal) (When to use which form: "Maga" when a higher ranking person speaks to a lower ranking person with formality. (ex.: boss to employee)
"Ön" when a lower ranking person speaks to a higher ranking person with formality. (ex.: employee to boss)
When speaking to the elderly the "Ön form" is used (as the "Maga form" can have pejorative undertones.)Ön,Maga ÖntMagát ÖnnélMagánál Ön alattMaga alatt az Ön lakásaa Maga lakása Ön látMaga lát Ön látjaMaga látja (-a/-e)Önök,Maguk ÖnöketMagukat ÖnöknélMaguknál Önök alattMaguk alatt az Önök lakásaa Maguk lakása Önök látnakMaguk látnak Önök látjákMaguk látják (-k)
Harmonic vowels in suffixes Front-back vowel harmony is important in Hungarian morphophonology. Certain suffixes also distinguish between front unrounded vowels and front rounded vowels. See Hungarian phonology or vowel harmony for a more detailed explanation.
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. While the template itself consists mainly of consonants (and sometimes vowels), the vowels that 'fill in' the template depend on the class of vowels (front, back, long, short, rounded, unrounded) in the word to which the template is attached.
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. For example, 'vVl' is the template meaning 'with,' but the first consonant ('v') changes to match the final consonant of the word to which it is attached (provided the word ends in a consonant).
Note that the stem-final and , as well as o and ö in foreign words, are lengthened before suffixes: (Short o and ö cannot occur at the end of Hungarian words.) Short , and retain their length:
Here are the vowels that form parallel pairs or triads in harmonic suffixes: Back Frontvariant/
It can be seen the members of these pairs/triads agree mostly in height and length but differ in backness. (An exception is the pair for which (open front unrounded vowel) is considered to be back.)
In the cases of vs. and and of and there appears a difference in roundedness, too.
Notes: is used in two of the groups. There are no suffixes that have a/e/ö, and (without ) is very rare and is used only for certain second-person plural suffixes. Whenever is used in a suffix, it is usually an invariant suffix. It also occurs once as a front verb suffix (paired with ) and in the irregular forms and (see Cases with personal suffixes).
Suffix typology The suffixes can be classified into the following phonological types: Initial consonant and no change depending on the stem ending: , Initial with complete preservative consonant assimilation, only for and Initial vowel and no change depending on the stem ending: , Link vowel on stems ending with a consonant, with link vowel for certain back-vowel noun stems, e.g. Link vowel on stems ending with a consonant: Link vowel on stems ending with a consonant: Link consonant on stems ending with a vowel and on certain stems ending with a consonant, only for and Invariant: ,
Minor variations: does not use the link vowel for any nouns The accusative suffix, , does not use a link vowel for stems ending with certain consonants
Note that the long vowels , and are not used as link vowels.
Citation form of suffixes If the list of suffixes has only one invariant form, it is used on all stems: . If the list of suffixes has two forms, the former is the form for back vowel stems and the latter is the form for front vowel stems: : is used for and is used for and . If the list of suffixes has three forms with the vowels , the form is used for back vowel stems, the form is used for front unrounded stems and the form is used for front rounded stems: : is used for , is used for and is used for . If the list of suffixes has forms that start with a vowel that are followed by one or more forms that start with a consonant, the forms that start with a vowel are used on consonant-final stems, and the forms which start with a consonant are used on vowel-final stems (the initial vowel of the suffix is called a link vowel, and the rules to select the form in the vowel or consonant group apply as above: : is used on , on and and is used on . If the list of suffixes has four forms for consonant-final stems, with the link vowels , the form is used with certain back noun stems: : is used for , is used for , is used for , is used for and is used for .
EndingSample wordSuffix variationConstantDifference by vowel qualityDifference by vowel quality and endingConsonant**Vowel *: Its suffix may agree with any of the preceding variants, e.g. but , but and .
Personal suffixes and link vowels Personal suffixes can have various uses in Hungarian grammar. There are two sets of them: Type I uses the '' set of vowels as link vowels whereas Type II uses the set. Therefore, their differences are: Type I has as link vowel where Type II only uses in back-vowel words Type I doesn't use as link vowel with front-vowel words while Type II does.
Type I () Type II ()SingularPluralSingularPlural1st person2nd person (informal)2nd person (formal or official)and 3rd person ("cases" attached to personal pronouns) (postpositions attached to personal pronouns) (verb suffixes in the past tense) (verb suffixes in the subjunctive) (possessive suffixes on certain nouns that require low linking vowel) (possessive suffixes on almost all adjectives) (possessive suffixes attached to nouns) (verb suffixes in the present tense) (suffixes attached to the infinitive)
In the example rows below the chart proper, the forms for the 1st person singular are given for the three basic types (back vowel, unrounded front vowel, rounded front vowel).