Case-marking asymmetry (Hungarian)

CasesystDegr: Case marking is degressively asymmetrical; a limited group within its nominals (such as pronouns or nouns within a defined lexical area) shows a smaller number of cases than the majority of nominals.



noun

personal pronoun

Nom.

barát ‘friend’

én ‘I’

ő ‘he/she/it’

Acc.

barát-ot

engem(et)

ő-t

Dat.

barát-nak

nekem

neki

Ine.

barát-ban

bennem

benne

Elat.

barát-ból

belőlem

belőle

Ill.

barát-ba

belém

belé

Ade.

barát-nál

nálam

nála

Abl.

barát-tól

tőlem

tőle

All.

barát-hoz

hozzám

hozzá

Sup.

barát-on

rajtam

rajta

Del.

barát-ról

rólam

róla

Sub.

barát-ra

rám

Com-Inst.

barát-tal

velem

vele

Caus-Fin.

barát-ért

értem

érte

Tra.

barát-tá

-

-

Term.

barát-ig

-

-

For.

barát-ként

-

-

Ess-Form.

barát-ul

-

-


The case-marking system of nouns and pronouns is asymmetrical in Hungarian. Nouns can take 18 (or according to other definitions 27) different case markers, while personal pronouns can have 14 cases (cf. Kenesei et al. 1998: 192, 270‒271). Except for the nominative and the accusative, the cases of the personal pronouns are formed by attaching a person marker to the case-marking suffixes used as stems. The nominative form of the personal pronoun can extend these compositional forms in an emphatic function: e.g. tőlem ‘from me’ - éntőlem ‘from me’ (D. Mátai 2003a: 212‒216).

Author: 

F. Gulyás Nikolett