Hungarian "particle+verb" constructions

[Observer]

I'm looking for an electronic list of "particle+verb" constructions in Hungarian. These would be of the type "kimegy" (out+go = go out), "meggyőz" (meg+win = convince), "elintéz", etc. It would be great if I could get an exhaustive (or a nearly exhaustive ) list of such verbs without having to copy out the ten zillion of them one by one from the dictionary… I couldn't find anything on yahoo or google, and I was wondering if someone would have an idea as to where to look. Or maybe the computational linguists already have such a list?
Thanks in advance for your help.

P.S. Or has anyone heard of a dictionary that only lists Hungarian phrasal verbs ("igekötős igék")? Or perhaps an online Hungarian dictionary or a lexicon where a search engine allows you to list items by their syntactic category?

[CoBB]

I don't think such a collection exists at all. Even the printed dictionaries are far from an exhaustive list. You could probably make an inquiry at szotar@dsd.sztaki.hu, whether their database is directly accessible, since it would take a long time to extract the information through the web interface, http://dict.sztaki.hu/.

[Observer]

[quote="CoBB the Generous"]I don't think such a collection exists at all.

I am beginning to fear that. That means if I really want to have such a list, then I'm condemned to manual slavery with a dictionary...

[CoBB]

That's why I advise at least trying to contact the SZTAKI guys, their dictionary seems to be quite rich and they can save you a lot of work.

[Observer]

Ok, I'll follow your advice. Thank you.

(Also, can I ask you to extend your generosity and answer a technical question for me about this platform on how to quote someone else's post in a nice white rectangle? Because what I did obviously didn't work...)

[CoBB]

You press the quote button and try not to delete neither the beginning (quote="name") nor the ending tag (/quote). Of course the real tags are written with square brackets. Additionally, you should press Preview instead of Submit first, it helps a lot in cutting down on the number of broken posts.

[Observer]

You press the quote button and try not to delete neither the beginning (quote="name") nor the ending tag (/quote). Of course the real tags are written with square brackets.

Thanks! This time it worked!

[CoBB]

Welcome aboard!

[móres]

<a href="http://ponyvanyelv.cjb.cc/igek/index.html">here</a> you can find a few of them

[Observer]

Oh yes! Thank you Mores! Here I can indeed find a "few" of them... like a thousand! + all the synonyms that they give and some of which are not yet on the list...!

How many such verbs do we have anyway? What's the number that comes after 999 zillion? Zsillion?

[CoBB]

I'd say 100000 would be a modest estimate. Zsillió is probably closer to the truth, whatever it is.

[Wicker808]

Hello. Regarding the question about a reference of Hungarian prefixed verbs, it seems that these people offer a special book of such words, but I have no experience with it or with this course. If someone knows more about this, I'd like to hear about it.

Also, I have another quesion about prefixed Hungarian verbs. If I understand correctly, adding a prefix to a verb causes two changes simultaneously:

1. The prefix may change the meaning of the verb.
2. The prefix will change the aspect of the verb from imperfective to perfective. If the verb is conjugated for present tense, this has the secondary effect of making the verb effectively future tense.

So, my questions are as follows:

1. Based on my limited Hungarian vocabulary, it seems that most verbs allow a "meg" prefix which changes the aspect but not the meaning. For example, megtanul means the same thing as tanul, but is perfective rather than imperfective. Is it correct to assume that all verbs have a perfective equivelent with unchanged meaning formed with the prefix "meg"? Or, is it necessary in Hungarian, as in the Slavic languages, to memorize both the perfective and imperfective forms of each verb?
2. For those perfective Hungarian verbs that have a changed meaning as a result of the attachment of a prefix, how can one form the corresponding imperfective verb? For example, from the imperfective "megy" to go, one can form the perfective "kimegy" to go out. But what is the imperfective equivelent of kimegy? In other words, how do you say "He is going out (now)"?
3. Are there are unprefixed Hungarian verbs which are nevertheless perfective? Are there prefixed Hungarian verbs which are nevertheless imperfective? If the answer to either of these questions is yes, is there any reliable way to determine the aspect of a verb?
4. Is it ever acceptable to use the "fog" future auxilliary verb with a perfective infinitive?

I would greately appreciate help with these questions. Thank you in advance.

[CoBB]

The prefix may change the meaning of the verb.

Exactly, but the change isn't necesarily radical, e. g. when adding a directional prefix to a verb of movement.

The prefix will change the aspect of the verb from imperfective to perfective. If the verb is conjugated for present tense, this has the secondary effect of making the verb effectively future tense.

Yes, that's true.

Is it correct to assume that all verbs have a perfective equivelent with unchanged meaning formed with the prefix "meg"? Or, is it necessary in Hungarian, as in the Slavic languages, to memorize both the perfective and imperfective forms of each verb?

Unfortunately it is the latter, also adding that not every verb has both aspects. Besides, aspect (actually a bit more than that) might be denoted by affixes as well instead of prefixes:

villan - it is currently flashing (emitting light)
megvillan - flashes once
villog - it keeps flashing (it has no perfective pair)
világít - it is continuously emitting light (no perfective pair either)

As for non-meg perfectives:

olvas - elolvas, kiolvas (I can't really describe the difference in English, but the latter somehow puts more stress on the from-beginning-to-end nature of reading)
megy - elmegy
intéz - elintéz (gets something done)
ad - odaad (this is the prefix that doesn't change the essential meaning of the verb, as opposed to elad, megad, kiad etc. that are completely different)

And so on.

Actually, even the perfective forms can be made continuous by reversing the order of the prefix and the stem:

Most megy el a tanár. - The teacher is just setting off.

This also answers your second question I guess.

Are there are unprefixed Hungarian verbs which are nevertheless perfective?

Yes, those where perfectiveness is denoted by an affix.

Are there prefixed Hungarian verbs which are nevertheless imperfective?

I can't think of really nice examples here, but I must note that the aspect can also be neutral.

If the answer to either of these questions is yes, is there any reliable way to determine the aspect of a verb?

Not really. Time information is embedded into the vocabulary, so you have to learn them as separate dictionary entries.

Is it ever acceptable to use the "fog" future auxilliary verb with a perfective infinitive?

If you are alluding to Slavic aspect here, that's a sidetrack. In Hungarian you can use 'fog' with any verb, but there's rarely any need to use it. If you say e. g. 'el fogok menni', the auxiliary adds rather certainty than future, since the future was already there in the first place.

I have to go now, but keep asking anyway.

[Wicker808]

villan - it is currently flashing (emitting light)
megvillan - flashes once
villog - it keeps flashing (it has no perfective pair)
világít - it is continuously emitting light (no perfective pair either)

That's interesting. Is there a general rule to be derived here? Are the -an, -og, -ágít (and, I guess, -en, -eg, -égít) suffixes productive with other verbs? Do they function like other generally-applicable verb suffixes, like -het/-hat?

Yes, those where perfectiveness is denoted by an affix.

Can you provide an example?

I can't think of really nice examples here, but I must note that the aspect can also be neutral.

Meaning that the verb can be interpreted as either perfective or imperfective according to the context? When you have some time, an example would be helpful. Also, would you say that the verb kinéz falls into this category, as it can be used with two meanings: to look out (perfective) and to look/appear (imperfective, I guess)?

Not really. Time information is embedded into the vocabulary, so you have to learn them as separate dictionary entries.

I expected as much. Are you aware of any resource, ideally online, that provide information about aspectual pairs? That is, how to determine the perfective equivelent of a given imperfective verb and vice versa? My dictionary doesn't provide aspectual information at all.

Thanks again for your help.

[CoBB]

That's interesting. Is there a general rule to be derived here? Are the -an, -og, -ágít (and, I guess, -en, -eg, -égít) suffixes productive with other verbs? Do they function like other generally-applicable verb suffixes, like -het/-hat?

No. The fact is, there are countless suffixes like that, and it is determined by history which one must be used with which stem. It's practically impossible to derive meaningful rules here, that's why they become separate dictionary entries. Bringing up -hat/-het is not a good analogy, because it's not a suffix that creates new dictonary entries (those that I refer to as 'affix', just to make it clear).

Yes, those where perfectiveness is denoted by an affix.

Can you provide an example?

Well, those vil- ones were an example.

Also, would you say that the verb kinéz falls into this category, as it can be used with two meanings: to look out (perfective) and to look/appear (imperfective, I guess)?

I think all verbs where a directional prefix is used in its primary meaning would classify as neutral in this sense, and that would include 'kinéz' as 'look out'. This is where inversion is used:

Csak néz ki a fejéből. - He's just looking out of his head. (Colloqiality for 'he looks stupid'.)
Kinéz az ablakon. - He looks out (of) the window.

Are you aware of any resource, ideally online, that provide information about aspectual pairs?

I can't help here, sorry. I just googled for 'magyar aspektus' and the first hit was quite interesting:

http://www.c3.hu/~nyelvor/period/1231/123108.htm (there is a table in chapter 4.3 which might be interesting)

It mentions the following aspects: divisible-continuous, static, dynamic-interruptible, progressive, perfective. There's no orthogonality here, the ways to form them are quite varied, including verb tense, affixes, prefixes, time expressions, word order and object...

That is, how to determine the perfective equivelent of a given imperfective verb and vice versa?

I'm quite positive there's no rule for that. It just has to be learnt. The problem is, in Hungarian aspect is rather a semantic than a grammatical category, that's also why so many factors are involved. I'm not even sure we can really talk about equivalent pairs here, those seem to be only special cases. If I just refer back to elolvas and kiolvas, but also átolvas, végigolvas, leolvas etc. it's apparent that we often have more than one way to make an action perfective.

[darkina]

The prefix will change the aspect of the verb from imperfective to perfective. If the verb is conjugated for present tense, this has the secondary effect of making the verb effectively future tense.

Yes, that's true.

Just like in Russian?

[CoBB]

:shock: Just like in Russian?

The main difference being that you can use 'fog' with Hungarian perfective verbs but not 'будет' with Russian ones, because in the case of Hungarian only the meaning is affected, but it's grammatically still present tense.

Igen, azzal a fontos különbséggel, hogy a magyar befejezett igékkel használható a „fog”, míg az oroszban ilyenkor tilos a „будет”, mivel a magyarban csak a jelentés változik, de nyelvtanilag attól még jelen idő.

[darkina]

I actually didn't even know that Hungarian had perfective and imperfective verbs... I had a suspicion of it, but I didn't think it was like in Russian...