Finnish and Hungarian are Uralic languages. Though they belong to the same language family, they are distantly related. The two languages express negation differently.
In Hungarian the adverb of negation is invariable and the verb is inflected. However, in Finnish the adverb of negation is inflected and the verb is invariable. Here are examples:
En puhu espanjaa.
Et puhu espanjaa.
Hän ei puhu espanjaa.
Emme puhu espanjaa.
Ette puhu espanjaa.
He eivät puhu espanjaa.
Nem beszélek spanyolul.
Nem beszélsz spanyolul.
Nem beszél spanyolul.
Nem beszélünk spanyolul.
Nem beszéltek spanyolul.
Nem beszélnek spanyolul.
The sentences mean the following:
I don't speak Spanish.
You don't speak Spanish.
He/she doesn't speak Spanish.
We don't speak Spanish.
You don't speak Spanish.
They don't speak Spanish.
The word order is the same in the two languages. However, Finnish always uses the pronoun in the third person. Hungarian can omit it in all persons. In Hungarian the adverb of negation (nem) is invariable. However, in Finnish the verb (puhu) is invariable.
Though Finnish and Hungarian belong to the same language family, they express negation differently. The structure of the Hungarian verb phrase with negation is similar to that of many other languages. However, the structure of the Finnish verb phrase with negation is different. It inflects the adverb of negation but not the verb.
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