17:11 Oct 13, 2002 |
Hungarian to English translations [PRO] Linguistics / Grammar | |||||||
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| Selected response from: Attila Piróth France Local time: 03:12 | ||||||
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Summary of answers provided | ||||
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5 +1 | An attempt |
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3 | Questions, examples |
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An attempt Explanation: Dear Olga, Thank you for the question. It gives many of us a chance to think a bit of some important points of Hungarian grammar. Something that we use somewhat unconciously - and thus we rarely realize its complexity and beauty. Let us take at the constructions through your examples. egy iranyú jegy orosz anyanyelvű lány jó kedvű ember, as opposed to almás rétes kabátos ember In the first group you have adjective (or a number) + derived adjective + noun, while in the second derived adjective + noun. Constructions with adjective derived with ú/ű + noun without another adjective to begin with are non-existent. In the second group the meaning of -s (os/es/ös) is WITH sg. Almás rétes - rétes/strudel WITH apple. Piros kabátos ember - man WITH a red coat. (This is one possible translation.) In the first group you will find more fundamental things. WITH won't do the job here. Egy irányú jegy - it is a fundamental property, a defining property of the ticket. Orosz anyanyelvű - is again something fundamental, sg that you cannot change easily - as opposed to kabátos ember, who can just remove the thing he is WITH. Jó kedvű is again something rather fundamental - though it can change more easily than your mother tongue. The line is not perfectly sharp but traceable. Therefore you will have a négy lábú, festékfoltos asztal barna hajú, fekete táskás lány. You will often hear sárga cipőjű ember - however, sárga cipős is more correct and commoner, I believe. A journal devoted to Hungarian language/grammar makes the following difference: Melléknévképzők: -s (-os/-es/-ös): fás, bokros, kavicsos (valamivel ellátott jelentésű); (száz)forintos (papírpénz); hetes (villamos); daliás, fiús (hasonlítást jelölők); családias, házias; futólagos, fölösleges; kékes, feketés (kisebb mértékű tulajdonságot jelölők); -ú/-ű, -jú/-jű: (piros) arcú, (piros) tetejű (valamivel bíró, valamivel ellátott jelentésűek); -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 2002-10-13 18:30:52 (GMT) -------------------------------------------------- http://www.c3.hu/~nyelvor/period/1241/124106.htm -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 2002-10-14 05:25:59 (GMT) -------------------------------------------------- Answer to Katalin\'s question in her Note added at 2002-10-13 21:45:44 (GMT): hosszú szőrű/hajú as opposed to piros kabátos. Hosszú haj/szőr is a characteristic of the person/dog. Piros kabát is an object that belongs to him. The first one is more fundamental. (How interesting: property would describe both - but with two different meanings.) An interesting question came to my mind - with a difficult example. In chemistry, we have \"purinvázas vegyület\". It seems to me that it is because of the fact that \"purinvázas\" is one word that this is used instead of the seemingly more logical purinvázú. When it is two words, even in scientific context similar constructions work with -ú, -ű: hosszú láncú polimer. How precisely can we draw the line, how universal its applicability is? This is a good and interesting question, so do not worry, I had no feeling of you picking on me. |
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