# Guessing plural form from dictionary entry codes



## Psi-Lord

My (somewhat layered) question comes from trying to see what kind of grammatical information I may get from a certain dictionary. I recently got myself a copy of MoBiMouse Plus, and it comes with the ‘Akadémiai’ Comprehensive Dictionary (Országh Al.). It’s great, but I couldn’t for the sake of me find any sort of help towards figuring out all the grammar the Hungarian-English dictionary provides for each entry, and so I’m moving on my own with guesses as educated as possible.  Anyway…

I was doing some exercises on the plural of nouns and adjectives the other night, and wasn’t sure whether _olcsó_ took a linking vowel or not (now I know it doesn’t: _olcsók_, although I’m told even some native speakers might say/write _olcsóak_ these days). Since none of the online resources I know gave any clues about it, I turned to MoBiMouse, which read:



> *olcsó* ‹-t; -n› _mn_



I know _mn_ stands for _melléknév_ and _-t_ for the accusative (_olcsót_), and I believe _-n_ stands for an adverbial form (_olcsón_). Anyway, the point is that neither suffix presented requires a linking vowel, and that’s where I get to the key point of my question – since the dictionary doesn’t mention -k explicitely, does that mean it should be obvious _olcsó_ takes no linking vowel in the plural, or could the lack of such vowel for -t and -n have also indicated -k doesn’t take it either?


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## Puppancs

Hi Psi-Lord,

Just in nutshell:

olcsók - plural, _noun

_olcsóak - plural, _adjective
_
olcsókat - plural, noun, acc.

olcsóakat - plural, adjective, acc.

Anyway, people tend to replace them with each other so there is no big difference whether you say _eladók _(people who sell) or _eladóak _(goods for sale).
Hope this help.

Have a nice day,
p.


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## Olivier0

Psi-Lord said:


> since the dictionary doesn’t mention -k explicitely, does that mean it should be obvious _olcsó_ takes no linking vowel in the plural, or could the lack of such vowel for -t and -n have also indicated -k doesn’t take it either?


Yes, exceptions for -t are usually the same for -k: shortening of vowel kéz>kezet, shortening and adding a "v" ló>lovat, loss of vowel terem>termet, also with moving around an "h" teher>terhet, etc. The main case of a different behaviour  would be város>várost/városok when -t is directly linked to a final consonant of the kind of r, l, s, j etc., so if your dictionary also mentions plurals in these cases, that should be enough for you.
-- Olivier


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## Puppancs

Puppancs said:


> there is no big difference whether you say _eladók _(people who sell) or _eladóak _(goods for sale)



That's not really true; beside _eladóak_, for 'goods for sale', _eladók_ is also acceptable but for 'sellers', _eladóak_ would be weird. More than weird. (incorrect)


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## Zsanna

In other words: all grammar cannot figure in a dictionary especially when it is such a delicate matter as the adding of suffixes... 
I suppose there are cases when dictionaries just cannot provide all information and you'll have to rely on grammatical rules picked up on the way. 

Don't forget, it may look chaotic at the beginning but it'll clear up once you've seen enough examples (and rules...)


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## Psi-Lord

Olivier0 said:


> The main case of a different behaviour  would  be város>várost/városok when -t is directly linked to a final  consonant of the kind of r, l, s, j etc., so if your dictionary also  mentions plurals in these cases, that should be enough for you.


Yay, it seems it does! 



> *város* ‹-ok, -t, -a› _fn_



There’s some hope after all! 

I really miss some sort of tool or software that made could help with both breaking down the structures in detailed pieces and pointing out ‘irregularities’ and peculiarities of vocabulary itens as you learn them. I’ve never been able to find even a simple morphological analyser for Hungarian, though.



Zsanna said:


> Don't forget, it may look chaotic at the beginning but it'll clear up once you've seen enough examples (and rules...)


I’m keeping my fingers crossed for that!  It’s somewhat tempting to go around trying to swallow everything in one bite, but I’m trying to go as slowly as possible, hoping to build a good base on which everything will stand more firmly later on.



Puppancs said:


> olcsók - plural, _noun
> 
> _olcsóak - plural, _adjective_


Now this particular bit confused me a little… I mean, in the lessons I’ve been through this far, they discussed the ‘regular’ nominative plural for both nouns and adjectives, so I’m okay with that. However, when it comes to _olcsó_, they’d pointed out that, among _adjectives_ ending in -ó, some (derived from verbs) can always take a linking vowel, while others may or may not on a word-by-word basis, and _olcsó_ would be an adjective that never does (at least normatively). The way you put it, though, means that this just depends on _olcsó_ being used as a noun or as adjective, is that so?


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## Puppancs

Psi-Lord said:


> Now this particular bit confused me a little… I mean, in the lessons I’ve been through this far, they discussed the ‘regular’ nominative plural for both nouns and adjectives, so I’m okay with that. However, when it comes to _olcsó_, they’d pointed out that, among _adjectives_ ending in -ó, some (derived from verbs) can always take a linking vowel, while others may or may not on a word-by-word basis, and _olcsó_ would be an adjective that never does (at least normatively). The way you put it, though, means that this just depends on _olcsó_ being used as a noun or as adjective, is that so?



Sorry about that, I  didn't want to confuse you at all.
 Hungarian adjectives can replace nouns in the sentences, in this case they demand as nouns and get suffixes as they were nouns. Furthermore, there are several adjectives which had _permanenty_ become nouns.
Those buildings are reds. - Azok az épuletek vörösek.
The reds (players in red) attack. - Támadnak a vörösök.
These cars are for sale. - Ezek az autók eladóak.
These people are the sellers. - Ezek az emberek az eladók.
My friends are tall. - A barátaim magasak.
The high-pitched voices (treble on the equalizer) sound good. - A magasok jól szólnak.

Most of the adjectives are not affected by this effect.


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## Zsanna

It is a complicated topic and I think even we don't know all the rules necessary for it.

See the following passage :http://www.nytud.hu/cgi-bin/pat3h.cgi?zoom=7&session=4fb16cde2414olcso1k


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## Psi-Lord

Köszönöm a segítségetek!


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