Possession and Cases

Hungarian Grammar 2

Chapter 8 · Possession and Cases Together

🏠 Possession — A birtoklás

Hungarian has no word for "my", "your" or "his" in front of a noun. The possessed noun carries a personal ending that says whose it is: ház (house) becomes házam (my house), házad (your house). Because this ending sits before the case suffix, you have been meeting possessed nouns since Chapter 1 (házamban, barátomnak, könyvemet). This chapter gives the endings in full and shows how the cases attach to them.

1. The six endings

Three families of stems cover most nouns. The singular endings are:

More examples of the same families: könyvem, könyved, könyve, könyvünk, könyvetek, könyvük (front, like kert but with -e in the 3rd person); ablakom, ablakod, ablaka and asztalom, asztalod, asztala (the -o type); tükröm, tükröd, tükre (tükör drops its vowel before the ending).

2. Plural possessed nouns: -i-

When there is more than one thing owned, an -i- comes before the person ending. The first and second person endings lose the linking vowel of the singular, and the 3rd person singular becomes just -i.

Compare a házam (my house) with a házaim (my houses), and a barátom (my friend) with a barátaim (my friends). The suffix -i- marks the things owned are many; it says nothing about how many owners there are.

3. A noun as the owner: a barátom háza

When the owner is a noun, it stands bare in front of the possessed noun, which takes the 3rd person singular ending (or -i for several things), even if the owner is plural.

A pronoun owner is usually left out, because the ending already says who. If you add it, for emphasis, the pronoun comes with the article:

4. Possessed nouns are definite

A noun with a possessive ending counts as definite. As a direct object it therefore calls for the definite conjugation (Hungarian Grammar 1, chapter 8) and the accusative from Chapter 2.

5. Adding the cases

The case suffix goes after the possessive ending, and the harmony rules apply to the whole word. There is one change to know: a 3rd person singular ending -a / -e (or -ja / -je) lengthens to -á / -é before a case that starts with a consonant. The other persons stay as they are.

The same possessed form works for every case in Chapters 4 to 7: a házamba, a házamból, a házamnál, a házamra, a házamért, a házamig. The 3rd person becomes a házába, a házából, a házánál. Only the owner and the stem change; the case rules are the ones you already know.

6. Having: van and nincs

Hungarian has no verb "to have". Possession is expressed with van (there is) or nincs (there is not) and a possessed noun, with the nominative and no article.

The owner can be put in the dative (Chapter 3) for emphasis or when it is a noun: Kinek van kulcsa? (Who has a key?). The question forms are Kinek a háza? (whose house) and Kié? (whose is it).

🗣️ In Use — Használatban

Possession in short exchanges.

📋 Quick Reference — Gyorstábla

✏️ Try It Yourself — Gyakorlás

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