# ülhetsz / olvashatsz



## angeloegabri

Meanwhile, there is a strange [for me ] phenomenon.
In the Veszprém Daiquiri Bár-Cukrászda-"réclame", they put an advertisement-text near a photograph, and this text says:

"Konyhánk nyitvatartása: Hétfőtől - Szombat, 11:00 - 21:00 óráig. „Hogy a kávé honnan is származik Az ma már alig lényeges. Nem a kezdőpont számít ugyanis, hanem a végpont, Ilyen kávét és így máshol nem ihatnak!”
A Daiquiri Kávéház és Koktélbár célja, hogy otthon érezd magad. Bárhonnan jössz, bárhová mész. Barátságos, nem zsúfolt, igényes és kellemes. Elvonulhatsz egy védett sarokba, vagy ülhetsz az internet előtt. Ihatsz finom teákat, vagy friss sütit ehetsz, de bebódulhatsz a finom koktéloktól is. Olvashatsz, hallgathatod a zenét, nézheted a tévét, érezheted a kávék bódító illatát és mindezt gyertyafény mellett. Vendégeink rövid időre távolabb kerülhetnek a hétköznapok nyüzsgésétől és közelebb egy bensőségesebb, meghittebb nyugodt világhoz."

I am (almost) sure that the "-hatsz" of "olvashatsz" comes from the verb "hat".
In this case the "-hetsz" of "ülhetsz" should (almost) surely come from the same verb.
If all the above is true, it is the first time that I see the vowel harmony beeing used among verbs (as in the opposition "ülhetsz / olvashatsz").
Is it so?


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## Panceltic

This is the suffix -hat/-het indicating possibility, and there are quite a lot of them in your text (elvonul*hat*sz, ül*het*sz, néz*het*ed, kerül*het*nek, bebódul*hat*sz ...) As is common with Hungarian suffixes, it conforms to vowel harmony.

According to Wiktionary, it does indeed come from the verb ‘hat’ but now it acts as a suffix so I don’t think anyone perceives it as a verb. You can even suffix it to the verb itself (hathat).


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## francisgranada

angeloegabri said:


> I am (almost) sure that the "-hatsz" of "olvashatsz" comes from the verb "hat".
> In this case the "-hetsz" of "ülhetsz" should (almost) surely come from the same verb.
> Is it so?


In my opinion, you are right.



> ... if all the above is true, it is the first time that I see the vowel harmony beeing used among verbs (as in the opposition "ülhetsz / olvashatsz").


It is perhaps not common or typical that verbs evolve to verbal endings or suffixes, however from the phonetic point  of view (including vocal harmony), the origin or etymology of this suffix  is not relevant.

The vowel harmony  appears when a word (during the evolution of the language)  "becomes" an ending/suffix, i.e. it is attached to the preceding word (noun, verb,  etc.) and it is no more perceived  as a separate word. As consequence, phonetically it becomes unstressed as the stress is always on the first syllable in Hungarian.


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## Zsanna

The verbs that have this -hat/-het suffix (_képző_ in this case) are called: ható igék (e.g. ülhet, alhat, etc.). Maybe you have seen it in descriptions of grammar. Their use has some tricks here and there (formal or stylistic), so be prepared for some surprises later on. (It would be too long to enumerate them now, I'm afraid.)


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