Number of verbal inflectional categories (Hungarian)

ConjCat=6: Number of verbal inflectional categories is 6.


(1) én néz-lek téged.

I look-prs.2obj.1sg you.acc

‘I’m looking at you.’


(2) én néz-né-lek téged.

I look-cond-prs.2obj.1sg you.acc

‘I would look at you.’


(3) én néz-te-lek téged.

I look-pst-2obj.1sg you.acc

‘I looked at you.’


In Hungarian, the verbal morphology codes tense, mood, the person and number of the subject, the definiteness of the object and second person objects if the subject of the verb is in the first person singular. From these, a single verb form can specify maximum four categories (cf. Kugler 2000a: 104‒123, Kiefer 2003: 212‒222).

Author: 

Nikolett F. Gulyás