Page:Simplified grammar of the Hungarian language.djvu/36

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A HUNGARIAN GRAMMAR.

-an -en; for instance, ház-an-ként, from house to house, or one house after the other.


c Postpositions.[1]

The postpositions are only a continuance of the suffixes for place and direction; the only difference being that the suffixes are joined to the noun, and the postpositions stand after the noun as separate words. There are two kinds of postpositions:

1. Independents, if they can be put after the substantive without changing the orthography of the latter; as, a Duna mellett, by the side of the Danube.

2. Dependent postpositions necessitate some orthographical modifications of the preceding substantive; as, a Duná-n túl, beyond the Danube. Here the postposition túl (beyond) necessitated the affix -n to the substantive Duna.

The independent postpositions are:—

alá, under, beneath Denote a motion towards
the place, or in the
direction they express.
elé, in front of
fölé, over, above
mellé, by the side of
közé, among, between
alól, from beneath Denote a motion from a thing.
elől, from before.[2]
  1. What are termed in Western languages prepositions stand in Hungarian after the noun, and are called postpositions.
  2. For instance, az egér fut a macska elől, the mouse runs from the cat—