# Adverbial participle: Most nem vagyok elfoglalva



## Gerry905

I'm looking at some example sentences and I've come across these two:
_Elfoglalt vagyok.
Most nem elfoglal*va *vagyok._

I checked on Wiktionary and saw that _elfoglalva_ is something called an adverbial participle. I don't understand what is it or when it is used, and why can't I just say _Most nem elfoglalt vagyok_ in analogy with the first example sentence. If anyone could clarify that, I'd be grateful.


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## jazyk

I don't think there's such a thing as elfoglal vagyok. I would say el vagyok foglalva. Preverbs/coverbs (look them up) are separated from verbs under some conditions.


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## Gerry905

I misstyped it. It is _elfoglal*t*_. Is that not an adjective?


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## Gerry905

In any case, my question is more about the use of this *-va *suffix than anything else.


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## Zsanna

Hello Gerry,
I'm sorry, I am a bit confused about what you would really like to know, so I follow my hunch... To start with their possible forms in their "normal" meaning (I am occupied./ I am not occupied...)
- in affirmative: _Elfogalt vagyok_ or _El vagyok foglalva_.
- in negative:_ Nem vagyok elfoglalt_ and _Nem vagyok elfoglalva_.

Your suggestion "Most nem elfoglalt (elfoglalva would be the same) vagyok" is also a possibility but putting the accent specially on "occupied", as if you said something like this in English: It's not that I am occupied ... (but I would like to have a little rest), i.e. this is why I don't want to go to the cinema.
It is apparently the most challenging bit about Hungarian: you can "play" with the word order in order to emphasize what you find logically most important. It is much easier for native speakers than for learners of our language...


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## Gerry905

My question is about _elfoglal_*va*. Why is the *-va* there and why can it work as an adjective when there is already an adjective for 'busy' - _elfoglalt_. Sorry if I'm being unclear.


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## Zsanna

This -va (and its pair - ve) is a suffix that makes a present participle from the verb, similar to -ing in English.

Fut*va** jött = He came runn*ing*.
Sül*ve*** szeretem = I like it cook*ed*.

However, it does not work exactly as its English "brother", just like in your sentence. (Why? That is not a very good/useful question when learning a language. )
Well, what you can find about it in a Hungarian dictionary is that this suffix creates a "way (*) or a state(**)" of the action/happening that the original verb meant. So probably the original meaning of the verb influences its use and translation, and language learners will have to take it in bit by bit.

In other cases, you can see it in a way where you have an adverb for it in English:
Nyit*va* van az ajtó. = The door is open.

It is not used as an adjective as far as I can tell. You can usually put questions about it that begin with how/in what way, etc.

I don't know if anybody did a contrastive work on this between English and Hungarian but I would be interested to read it.

P.S. On second thoughts... *The answer to your question seems to be that your sentence belongs to the ** (= state) category.*


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## Gerry905

Thanks for the thorough explanation  I feel like I'll have to come back to it multiple times before I even start to wrap my head around it.


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