Monday, January 8, 2024

Comparison of Finnish and Hungarian Nominative Plurals

Finnish and Hungarian plural nouns can vary. In Finnish they can be in the nominative or the partitive, and in Hungarian they can be in the nominative or the accusative. Let us compare the nominative plural nouns of both languages.

In Finnish nominative plural nouns end with -t and in Hungarian they end with -k. Both languages also use linking vowels for base nouns which end with consonants. Here are examples with the nominative singular and the nominative plural:

alma/almák omena/omenat (apple/apples)
asztal/asztalok pöytä/pöydät (table/tables)
csillag/csillagok tähti/tähtit (star/stars)
épület/épületek rakennus/rakennukset (building/buildings)
férfi/férfiak mies/miehet (man/men)
király/királyok kuningas/kuninkaat (king/kings)
királynő/királynők kuningatar/kuningattaret (queen/queens)
madár/madarak lintu/lintut (bird/birds)
szem/szemek silmä/silmät (eye/eyes)
szív/szívek sydän/sydämet (heart/hearts)

A few of the plurals are completely regular such as királynők (queens) in Hungarian and lintut (birds) in Finnish. However, in the Hungarian plural almák we can observe vowel lengthening and in madarak vowel shortening. In asztalok (tables) we can observe the linking vowel before the suffix.

In the Finnish plural pöydät (tables) we can observe consonant gradation and in kuninkaat (kings) we can observe both consonant gradation and vowel lengthening. Though Finnish and Hungarian use different suffixes for the nominative plural, they are both voiceless plosives. They also use linking vowels between consonants.

Finnish and Hungarian form the nominative plural with voiceless plosives. The suffix is -t in Finnish and -k in Hungarian. The two languages also use linking vowels to maintain the syllable structure VC at the end of the word.

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