Page:Simplified grammar of the Hungarian language.djvu/23

Rh form, if the object does not immediately follow the attribute but is preceded by an adjective or other words.

Note.—The student is requested to pay special attention to these rules, as they are necessary for the proper understanding of the Hungarian language, for often the cases (and with them the right meaning) might be misunderstood if the orthography alone were taken into consideration; as for instance, in the sentence—Pál háza ég. Pál is not inflected, while ház is with the personal suffix -a; and yet Pál is in the attributive, and ház-a in the nominative.

The termination of the genitive case is -é for all nouns, and means also possession. The difference between this and the former case is:—

(a) That the genitive can stand by itself, that is, without its object, which is then understood; as, Whose hat is this? Answer: Péter-é, Peter's.

(b) The genitive may stand as predicate of its own object; as Ez a kalap Péter-é, this hat is Peter's.

Note.—In this sentence kalap is in Hungarian, as in English in the nominative, as the objective form of kalap is suppressed and the ending -é is substituted for it. The sentence in full would be, Ez a kalap Péternek kalapja, this hat is Peter's hat.

(c) The genitive, being a contraction of both possessor and object possessed, may be used as subject or predicate, and can be