Re: Questions about Hungarian

On 2 May 2004 Racsko Tamas <tracsko@...> wrote:
>   Nasals: [..] <n'> /N, n'/, <ng> /N, N\/.
  There's a typo, the correct IPA equivalents:  <n'> /J, n'/
  (Probably there're more unnoticed...)

On 2 May 2004 vehke <vaksje@...> wrote:

> nom.pl (-t), oblique.pl suffix (-j-)
  The original question was about the cases (=terminal suffixes),
therefore I was left out the markers (=non-terminal suffixes) like
plural.

  Hungarian sources mention four plural markers, that are, in
additional to the above, the following:
  *-k : plural marker on personal pronouns (e.g. Livonian /teg_0/,
Hungarian dialectal /tik/ 'you 2pl'); to denote the plural of the
possessor in possessive suffixes (e.g. Finnish -nsa/nsä could be read
in two ways: /nsa, nsE/ 'his/her/its' or /nsa.?, nsE.?/ 'their', the
glottal stop comse from a previous *-k), and in verbal personal
suffixes (cf. Hungarian paradigms)
  *-n : denoted the plural of the posessed in possessive suffixes, e.g.
Finnish dialectal (Iitti) /tupa.s/ 'thy[2sg] room' ~ /tupa.n.s/
'your[2pl] room'.

  The modern Hungarian plural marker -k (on nouns) is of uncertain
origin. Maybe it comes from PFU *-k but its an unusual development: it
should have become /j/, but it's possible that its morphological
function prevented it from regular changes. Another possibility is
derivateiv esuffix PFU *-kkA. It could form _collective nouns_, cf.
Finnish -kkO < *-kkA + *-i in koivikko 'poplar wood, place full of
poplars' < koivu 'poplar (tee)'. IMHO the most probable is that the two
suffix merged together in Hungarian *-k.

  There's an opinion that FU (or PFU) had (probably optional) dual (Ob-
Ugric, Lappish and Samoiedic languages have dual, uncertain traces can
be identified even in Hungarian and Finnish). Its reconstructed marker
is *-kA /ka, kE/. However a dialectal dual marker *-n is also possible.

  Another type of markers were the posessive markers: they was part of
a suffix chain like: root + [PlR] + Px + [PlP] + [Cx], where [PlR] is
the optional plural marker of the root (possessed) *-n, Px is the
posessive marker (see later), [PlP] is the optional plural marker of
the Px (possessor) *-k and Cx is the optional case suffix. Px was the
same as the personal pronouns: *mV '1st person', *tV '2nd person', *sV
'3rd person' (V = vowel of uncertain quality).

  There was an emphatic suffix *-mp- that became the marker of the
comparative in Hungarian (-b/bb) and in Baltic-Finnish-Lappish branch
(e.g. Finnish -mpi, Norwegian Lappish -b/b'bo). These developments are
considered to be parallel because the PFU seems not to have common
comparative (positive + ablative were used instead).

> acc.pl (-ti)
  It's supprising to me: joining two functions (plural and case) into
one suffix is a flexional behaviour. I hardly believe that the
agglutinating PFU had it. Not even my Baltic Finnish sources mention
it. I suppose that it's an particular Lappish development by reversing
an *-it suffix chain < oblique plural suffix *-i/j + accusative II *-t.

> abessive (-ptak/ptäk).
  Thanks for this. My sources don't mention it, though it seems
possible, because I've found its recognizable continuants throughout
the PFU languages _except_ Ugric branch. Probably it was part of PFU
(but not PU!), or a new common Finnish-Permic development after the
disseparation of the Ugric branch.

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