Abstract
In addition to the common concatenative morphological system of Hungarian, there is a smaller portion of word forms that are templatic. These words satisfy requirements on their phonological shape. We here examine constraints on the number of syllables in templatic word forms. We observe that while the vowels in concatenative forms typically harmonize in backness (and in a more limited way also rounding), the vowels in nominal templatic forms often do not. On the other hand, the vowels in verbal templatic forms do harmonize. Furthermore, truncation is applied to satisfy the limit on word size in nominals, but truncation is generally not available as a repair for templatic verbal forms. We model our observations by a subsumption hierarchy of morphological layers: a concatenative layer, a (vowel) harmony layer, and a (stem) integrity layer.
1 Introduction
One can observe many diverse morphological patterns in languages which are potentially incompatible with each other. In some cases, such patterns are found within the same language: some morphological forms conform to one type of morphological pattern, others conform to another type. In the present paper we examine such a situation in Hungarian. The two morphological patterns are the concatenative and the templatic patterns. Morphologically complex words that follow the concatenative pattern are created by a simple concatenation of the stem and the suffix, which may involve the deletion or insertion of a single segment from or to the stem or the suffix, typically to satisfy well-formedness conditions (Siptár & Törkenczy 2000). Words that follow the templatic pattern are subject to templatic constraints on the output, in our case on the number of syllables. Prototypical inflection is concatenative in Hungarian,1 while derivation may belong to either of the two types. A word may contain both types of pattern, and their order is not set, that is, a word produced by templatic morphology may be subject to further concatenative suffixation, and vice versa, a word produced by the concatenation of stem and suffix or of two stems may then undergo templatic morphology, abiding by the relevant morphotactic constraints, namely, inflection cannot be followed by derivation, therefore an inflected form cannot be truncated. The lack of ordering between the two types of morphology means that the present separation of morphophonological layers is not compatible with the basic tenets of Lexical Phonology (Kiparsky 1982), since in that model the application of the processes assigned to different layers is strictly ordered.
Repair processes may operate in both types of morphology to create phonologically well-formed surface forms or, in their absence, we sometimes observe defectivity (paradigm gaps). We may assume that the two patterns belong to two morphophonological subsystems, and we observe that these subsystems, that is, the repair mechanisms available in them, have specific relationships to other morphophonological phenomena of the language, among them to vowel harmony. To wit, the deletion of longer sequences of segments (truncation), which is a repair mechanism in templatic morphology, and vowel harmony are mutually exclusive (hence the title of this paper). Other processes, for example, vowel insertion, are subject to the regularities of front/back harmony, even when the insertion of a vowel is a repair for some templatic requirement.
We also observe that while both verbal and nominal morphophonology may be templatic, the set of available repair mechanisms are different in the two domains: truncation is possible in nominal, but not in verbal paradigms. With respect to other morphophonological subsystems there is an immediate consequence: truncated templatic nominal forms involve harmonically invariant suffixes, thus these forms are not necessarily harmonic. On the other hand, templatic verbal forms typically obey vowel harmony restrictions, just like the majority of concatenative forms, since verbal suffixes almost always vary harmonically. The source of this difference may be sought in the different harmonicity of nominal and verbal forms: monomorphemic verb stems are almost exceptionlessly harmonic and suffixes added to them obligatorily harmonize or else are defective, while nouns and adjectives are not always harmonic, and their suffixes do not always harmonize.
A uniform account of these observations is achievable by representing morphophonology as a series of layers of increasing sizes, each subsuming the previous one, similarly to the grammatical representation of phonotactic and morphophonological layers observed in certain languages (e.g., Itô & Mester 1995 and, for different phenomena in Hungarian, Trón & Rebrus 2001). In such a subsumption hierarchy, membership in a given layer entails membership in all outer layers. The two relevant subsystems can be separated by assuming a concatenative layer, thus dividing potential processes in two: those belonging to this layer are in the concatenative subsystem, those outside this layer are in the templatic subsystem. The concatenative layer is contained in the harmony layer, within which vowel harmony applies. For this reason, concatenative morphology entails harmony – disregarding the few nonharmonizing concatenative forms. Templaticity, however, is possible with or without vowel harmony. The largest layer is the integrity layer, within which the deletion of multisegment sequences is not available, outside of which it is. In this latter domain we find templatic forms in which the required syllable count is achieved by truncation.
We first introduce some of the relevant morphophonological patterns: concatenation, vowel harmony, and templatic forms, in §2. The relationship of diminutive forms and vowel harmony is examined in §3. Verbal frequentative forms and their relation to vowel harmony are briefly discussed in §4. The main differences between the two morphological systems, the concatenative and the templatic systems, are presented in §5, with special emphasis on the different degree of tolerance towards vowel disharmony in nominal and verbal paradigms (§5.2). An analysis applying a subsumption hierarchy of morphological layers in which membership in an inner layer entails membership in all outer layers is proposed in §6. Conclusions are provided in §7.
2 Morphophonological patterns
Verbal, nominal, and adjectival lexemes typically have large extended paradigms in Hungarian. The forms in these paradigms are primarily created by suffixation. In many cases the stem of these suffixed forms is modified by insertion (either of a single consonant or a single vowel) or deletion (of a single vowel). Less commonly a longer part of the stem is deleted. We will discuss these two cases in this section. We also briefly introduce vowel harmony (§2.2), postponing a discussion of the different behaviour of nominal and verbal forms with respect to this phenomenon to §5.2.
2.1 Concatenative morphology
It is well-known that Hungarian words are formed of stems by adding affixes (almost exclusively suffixes) to them. The language is often classified as agglutinative, since in many cases morphemes and their meanings are neatly separable (cf. the inflected nominal form báťá-i-m-ék-é-i-n2 ‘older_brother-PL.POSS-1SG-FAMPL-POSR-PL-SUP’ = ‘on those of my older brothers and their families’). The morphological system of the language is thus typically concatenative, in most cases stems occur in words in their integrity. During the linking of a stem and a suffix, a single vowel, (1a), or a single consonant may be inserted, (1b), these are emboldened and not glossed below, or a single vowel (always the last one of the stem) may be deleted, (1c). (Note that in the case of some suffixes, like the transitive -ít or the intransitive -ul∼ül, it is a lexical property of a vowel-final stem if it exhibits vowel deletion, like sürke, or consonant insertion, like tanú.)
| Morphological processes in concatenation |
| vowel insertion | |||
| bér-t ‘wage-ACC’ | vs. | kék-e-t ‘blue-’ | |
| betű-čke ‘letter-DIM’ | vs. | kék-e-čke ‘blue-’ | |
| consonant insertion: | |||
| méz-e ‘honey-POSS.3SG’ | vs. | mű-v-e ‘creation-’ | |
| kék-ít ‘blue-TRANS’ | vs. | tanú-š-ít ‘witness-’ | |
| vowel deletion: | |||
| kék-ül ‘blue-INTR’ | vs. | sürke ‘grey’ – sürk-ül | |
| perem-e ‘fringe-POSS.3SG’ | vs. | terem ‘hall’ – term-e | |
2.2 Vowel harmony
The language is also known for having many suffixes that show up in two or three vocalic alternants that are selected by the stem's harmonic category (cf. kék-ül, betű-čke in (1) vs. čúf-ul ‘ugly-INTR’, čúf-o-čka ‘-DIM’). As the last example shows, harmonic vocalic alternation also occurs in the vowels inserted between the stem and the suffix (cf. kék-e-čke, kék-e-t in (1a), tök-ö-čke ‘pumpkin-DIM’, tök-ö-t ‘-ACC’ vs. bab-o-čka ‘bean-DIM’, bab-o-t ‘-ACC’).
We will refer to word forms containing both front and back vowels as disharmonic. Disharmony has several degrees (Rebrus & Törkenczy 2016). Disharmonic words containing front rounded vowels are strongly disharmonic (e.g., šofőr ‘chauffeur’, nüans ‘nuance’, öt-kor ‘five-TEMP’, debüt-ál ‘debut-VRBZ’), disharmonic words containing only front nonlow unrounded vowels i, í [iː] or é [eː] (in addition to back vowels) are weakly disharmonic (e.g., baki ‘blooper’, béka ‘frog’, ház-ig ‘house-TERM’, cél-hoz ‘target-ADE’). The short low front unrounded vowel e [ɛ] is in an intermediate position: it freely occurs with back vowels in stems (e.g., haver ‘pal’, beťár ‘outlaw’) but apart from the suffixed forms of such stems it does not occur in polymorphemic forms, since suffixes containing e alternate harmonically (the apparently exceptional diminutive suffixes containing e will be discussed in §2.3), and stems containing e (and other front vowels) cannot be suffixed with the back alternant of an alternating suffix. Front/back alternations involve the following vowels: ü∼u, ű∼ú, ö/e∼o, ő∼ó, e∼a, é∼á. The front high unrounded vowels i and í do not participate in vowel harmony, they have no back alternants, and they freely occur in (weakly) disharmonic word forms. The occurrence of the front mid unrounded vowel é is less common in such a context, while low e is even rarer here, for example, while é does, e does not occur in harmonically invariant suffixes.
Monosyllabic stems containing i or í are often, those containing é are rarely, antiharmonic, which means that they are followed by the back-vowelled alternant of harmonically varying suffixes (e.g., šír-nak ‘grave-DAT’, cél-nak ‘goal-’ vs. harmonic hír-nek ‘news-’, tél-nek ‘winter-’). This is a lexical property of stems. Since an antiharmonic stem may only contain a front unrounded vowel, antiharmony creates weakly disharmonic word forms. Although phonetically weakly disharmonic, we do not take such vowel sequences to be disharmonic, since the suffix follows the harmonic class of the antiharmonic stem. Thus, in this paper it is only the sequence of e and a back vowel (in any order) that we refer to as disharmony proper, in addition, of course, to sequences of front rounded and back vowels, which occur only marginally in the language. We provide further details of vowel harmony in §5.2.
2.3 Templatic morphology
Beside concatenative patterns, which constitute the majority, Hungarian also features templatic patterns, but only in derivation, never in inflection. In this case the number of syllables is constrained: the output is required to contain exactly two, exactly three, or minimally three syllables (vowels). To meet this requirement longer stems are truncated: potentially more than a single vowel is deleted from them.3
In nominal paradigms4 many diminutive forms exhibit templatic morphology. By far the most common pattern is disyllabic: a stem, which is truncated when necessary so that it contains a single vowel, followed by a diminutive suffix. There are several alternants of this suffix (or several suffixes) containing any of the short vowels (i, e, a, o,5 u) except for the front rounded ö. The other front rounded vowel, ü, occurs marginally and only after a front rounded stem vowel to avoid strong disharmony. The suffix(es) may also contain a consonant either before or after the vowel. For a more comprehensive account, see Rebrus & Szigetvári (2021). We give illustrative examples in (2), the truncated portion of the stem is enclosed in angle brackets.
| Two-syllable diminutives |
| šün-i ‘hedgehog’; gazd〈a〉-i ‘owner’, šüt〈eméň〉-i ‘pastry’, čok〈oládé〉-i ‘chocolate’ |
| nő-ci ‘woman’; ru〈ha〉-ci ‘dress’, fö〈ldrajz〉-ci ‘geography’, Tün〈de〉-ci name |
| sán-kó ‘sledge’, %šün-kó; tet〈ováláš〉-kó ‘tattoo’, tel〈efon〉-ó ‘phone’ |
| Ter〈éz〉-ka ‘Theresa’, Bor〈bála〉-ka ‘Barbara’, cer〈uza〉-ka ‘pencil’ |
| ďeng〈e〉-uš ‘weak’, %Tünd〈e〉-uš/üš name, pel〈enka〉-uš ‘diaper’ |
| pör〈költ〉-es ‘stew’, pál〈inka〉-es ‘brandy’, alk〈oholišta〉-es ‘alcoholic’, Čab〈a〉-es name |
| kal〈auz〉-ler ‘conductor’, jobb〈oš〉-er ‘right-wing’, bal〈oš〉-ler ‘left-wing’, gaď〈i〉-ďer ‘worthless’, ňug〈díjaš〉-ger ‘pensioner’, mačk〈a〉-er ‘cat’ |
The first stems are monosyllabic in (2a–c) and each one is preserved in its integrity, while longer stems are truncated after their first syllable. The fate of the consonant(s) following the first vowel cannot be fully predicted (cf. moz〈gókép〉-i ‘movie’ vs. izg〈almaš〉-i ‘exciting’ or the name Orš〈oja〉-i vs. kor〈šó〉-i ‘mug’; cf. Rebrus & Szigetvári 2022). The diminutive suffix (variant) -er is always preceded by a consonant cluster (often a geminate), therefore if the truncated stem ends in a single consonant it is geminated, as in (2g), cf. Fűköh & Rung (2005). The truncative diminutive suffix is generally harmonically invariant, containing either a front or a back vowel, irrespective of the stem vowel. (%Tünd-üš, in which the suffix harmonizes, is a very rare and not universally accepted diminutive form, existing beside the strongly disharmonic form %Tünd-uš.)
Templatic patterns are also found in verbal derivations. There is a set of frequentatives that are disyllabic and end in -doš∼döš∼deš, -kod∼köd∼ked, -dal∼del, -kál, or -ál. These suffixes are added exclusively to one-syllable stems. We list examples in (3).
| Two-syllable frequentatives |
| dug-doš ‘tuck-FREQ’, köp-döš ‘spit-’, ňel-deš ‘swallow-’ |
| lop-kod ‘steal-FREQ’, döf-köd ‘poke-’, čip-ked ‘pinch-’ |
| sab-dal ‘cut-FREQ’, tör-del ‘break-’, tép-del ‘tear-’ |
| jár-kál ‘walk-FREQ’, buj-kál ‘hide-’, sur-kál ‘stab-’ |
| dob-ál ‘throw-FREQ’, ugr-ál ‘jump-’ |
Frequentative forms that end in -gál∼gél are exactly three syllables long. They can only contain one- or two-syllable stems, the former containing an augment, -do∼de∼dö-, or in one case -ön-, in two others -i-. We illustrate the augmented stems in (4a) and others in (4b).
| Three-syllable frequentatives |
| áll-do-gál ‘stand-AUGMENT-FREQ’, id-do-gál ‘drink-’, él-de-gél ‘live-’, ül-dö-gél ‘sit-’, dül-ön-gél ‘lean-’, huz-i-gál ‘pull-’, ránt ‘jerk’ – ránc-i-gál |
| rohan-gál ‘run-FREQ’, kapar/kapir-gál6 ‘rasp-’, kereš-gél ‘search-’, nevet-gél ‘laugh-’ |
Frequentative forms that end in -gat∼get are minimally three syllables long. In these forms a vocalic augment appears after one-syllable stems,7 (5a), but this vowel is missing after two-syllable, (5b), or longer stems, (5d), even when the result is a highly marked consonant cluster (like -stg- [-zdg-] in (5b)),8 although cluster simplification may also occur, as in (5c).
| Minimally-three-syllable frequentatives |
| tol-o-gat ‘push-FREQ’, rak-o-gat ‘put-’, es-e-get ‘eat-’, tist-o-gat ‘clean-’, ölt-ö-get ‘stitch-’, üt-ö-get ‘hit-’ |
| ápol-gat ‘nurse-’, kösön-get ‘thank-’, vadás-gat ‘hunt-’, illest-get ‘match-’ |
| robbant-gat ‘blow up-’, kattin(t)-gat ‘click-’, tekin(t)-get ‘reckon-’ |
| arasol-gat ‘crawl-’, fűrésel-get ‘saw-’, išmétel-get ‘repeat-’, parančol-gat ‘command-’ |
Another case of verbal templaticity is one type of deadjectival intransitive derivation. Here we find two lexical allomorphs: disyllabic intransitive verb stems end in -ul∼ül (cf. (6a–c)),9 while longer ones contain -od∼ed∼öd- (cf. (6d–f)). The latter are bound stems, since their present indicative nondefinite 3sg forms end in -ik, unlike other verbs that use their suffixless stem in this paradigm cell.
| Deadjectival intransitive verbs |
| tág-ul ‘wide-INTR’, kék-ül ‘blue-’, zöld-ül ‘green-’ |
| sárg〈a〉-ul ‘yellow-’, fak〈ó〉-ul ‘pale-’, hüj〈e〉-ül ‘stupid-’ |
| bő-v-ül ‘broad-AUGMENT-’ |
| komoj-od-ik ‘serious-INTR-NDF.3SG’, fehér-ed-ik ‘white-’, tömör-öd-ik ‘solid-’ |
| somor〈ú〉-od-ik ‘sad-’, kešer〈ű〉-ed-ik ‘bitter-’, gömböj〈ű〉-öd-ik ‘spherical-’ |
| šűrű-š-öd-ik ‘dense-AUGMENT-’, forró-š-od-ik ‘hot-AUGMENT-’ |
The data in (6b) prove that it is the output of the derivation that the template constrains: if the final vowel of a disyllabic stem is deleted, it takes -ul∼ül to produce a disyllabic output, just like the monosyllabic stems do in (6a). The augmentation of a consonant, as in (6c) and (6f), does not influence the syllable count of the stem, augmented monosyllabic stems are suffixed with -ul∼ül, longer augmented stems with -od∼ed∼öd-. If the last vowel of a three-syllable stem is deleted, we still find the expected -od∼ed∼öd- suffix, since the output will be longer than two syllables, (6e). For the same reason, if a two-syllable stem is augmented, -od∼ed∼öd- is used, (6f).
Some templaticity can also be detected in two types of nouns derived from verb stems. Both types are similar to the frequentatives mentioned in (5): the output of the derivation contains minimally three syllables. To achieve this a vowel augment occurs after monosyllabic stems, as shown in (7b) and (7e). In fact, the example in (7f) contains a consonantal augment after the vowel-final stem and also a vowel+consonant augment to fill the three-syllable template.
| Deverbal nouns |
| talál-máň ‘invention, lit. find-NOMZ’, ki-ad-máň ‘estreat, lit. out-give-NOMZ’, teremt-méň ‘creat-ion’ |
| áll-o-máň ‘substance, lit. stand-NOMZ’, ad-o-máň ‘donation, lit. give-NOMZ’, vet-e-méň ‘sow-ing’, šüt-e-méň ‘pastry, lit. bake-NOMZ’ |
| faďi-z-da ‘ice creamery, lit. ice cream-VRBZ-NOMZ’, étkez-de ‘canteen, lit. eat-NOMZ’ |
| šör-főz-de ‘brewery, lit. beer-cook-NOMZ’, ki-főz-de ‘eating house, lit. out-cook-NOMZ’, táv-ir-da ‘telegram station, lit. distance-write-NOMZ’ |
| moš-o-da ‘lavatory, lit. wash-NOMZ’, šüt-ö-de ‘bak-ery’, ir-o-da ‘office, lit. write-NOMZ’ |
| lö-v-öl-de ‘rifle range, lit. shoot-AUGMENT-AUGMENT-NOMZ’ |
We can observe the effect of front/back harmony in these nominalizers: both occur in two forms, -máň∼méň and -da∼de, according to the harmonic class of the stem. Rounding harmony does not affect the vowel augment before -máň∼méň, this vowel is unrounded in šüt-e-méň (cf. šüt-ö-de). This is unexpected, since this augment vowel alternates with o (cf. áll-o-máň), not with a. The augment before -da∼de is always o or ö, never e, suggesting that rounding harmony is inactive here, too. However, the only case in which this vowel is expected to be e is the archaic form %fešt-ö-de ‘paint shop, lit. paint-NOMZ’.
Also note that an augment is found after the monosyllabic stem in ad-o-máň or ir-o-da, but not in ki-ad-máň or táv-ir-da, where the two stems and the ending together provide the three syllables required by the template. Likewise, šör-főz-de and ki-főz-de satisfy the three-syllable template, but the nonexisting form *főz-de would not and the repaired form *főz-ö-de does not exist either.10
The stem of a templatic form is potentially subject to truncation only when there is a strict limit of two syllables on the maximal size of the output, as in the case of the diminutives in (2) or the frequentatives in (3). In all other cases either the minimal size of the word form is constrained, as in (5) or (7), or different stems are selected to fit the template: a monosyllabic stem before -ul/ül and a longer stem before -od/ed/öd-, as in (6).
3 Diminutives and harmony
The most extensive corpus for templatic morphology in Hungarian comes from nominal diminutives. The derivation of these forms is typically lexically constrained, e.g., the name Borbála is associated with the diminutive forms Bor-i, Bor-ka, Bor-ča, Bor-iš, but not often with ?Bor-či and never with *Bor-uš, while for another name, Teréz, the forms Ter-i, Ter-ka, Ter-či, Ter-uš are commonly used, but *Ter-ča or *Ter-iš are not. Concatenative diminutives, on the other hand, are not constrained in this way, it is always possible to add at least one of the suffix alternants -ka/ke/(V)čka/(V)čke to a nominal stem (e.g., Borbálá-čka, Teréz-ečke, Teréz-ke). This stem may itself be a templatic diminutive form (e.g., Bori-ka, Borčá-čka; Teri-ke, Terči-ke, Teruš-ka). We can notice a correlation here: the concatenative diminutive suffix(es) show harmonic alternation, while the templatic ones do not. This is demonstrated by the diminutive forms of given names in (8), but the common nouns in (2) exhibit the same pattern.
| Concatenative and templatic diminutives | |
| concatenative (harmonizing) | templatic (not harmonizing) |
| Teréz-ke, Teréz-ečke, Teri-ke, Teruš-ka | Ter-ka, Ter-a, Ter-uš, Te-ca, Ter-i, Ter-či |
| Péter-ke, Péter-ečke, Peti-ke, Peťuš-ka | Peť-ka, Peť-a, Peť-uš, Pet-i |
| Ferenc-ke, Feri-ke, Fecó-ka | Fer-kó, Fer-ó, Fe-có, Fer-i |
| Borbálá-čka, Bori-ka, Boriš-ka | Bor-ka, Bor-ča, Bor-i, Bor-iš |
| Károj-ka, Karči-ka, Kares-ka/-ke | Kar-či, Kar-es |
| Jóžef-ka/-ke, Jóži-ka | Jóž-ka, Jóž-i |
Concatenative diminutive suffixes all have a front- and a back-vowelled alternant, which is selected according to the stem's harmonic class. The resulting word forms can only be strongly disharmonic if the stem was strongly disharmonic in the first place (e.g., šofőr-öčke ‘chauffeur-DIM’, nüans-očka ‘nuance-DIM’). Weakly disharmonic concatenative diminutive forms also follow the general pattern: a stem containing a back vowel followed by a front unrounded vowel may take the back (e.g., Bori-ka, Kázmér-ka) or the front alternant of the suffix (e.g., Kares-ka/ke). Disharmonic forms containing e exhibit free variation, as elsewhere (e.g., Jóžef-ka/-ke; for further details see Rebrus, Szigetvári & Törkenczy 2023).
Templatic diminutive suffixes contain a harmonically invariant vowel. Thus we have -ka, -ca, -ča, -a, but no -ke, -ce, -če, -e at the end of templatic diminutive forms. Likewise, -kó, có is not accompanied by -kő, -cő, or -es by -as (or -os and -ös).11 Note that the harmonically alternating -ka/-ke is concatenative, it does not truncate the stem: cf. the harmonically alternating suffix in Teréz-ke, Boriš-ka vs. the invariant one in Ter-ka, Bor-ka. As a result, concatenative diminutive forms are typically harmonic (or weakly disharmonic with a back vowel followed by i, í, or é in the stem), while templatic diminutive forms are often disharmonic (Fer-kó, Ter-ka, Kar-es, kal-ler). However, no templatic diminutive suffix contains an invariant front rounded vowel. As a result, strong disharmony is rare in templatic diminutive forms (%Tünd-uš, šün-kó ‘hedgehog’ are two of the rare examples), since stems with a front rounded vowel are typically suffixed by front (unrounded) vowelled suffixes: e.g., šün-i, Fül〈öp〉-i, Döm〈ötör〉-i, pör〈költ〉-es ‘stew’.
4 Frequentatives, harmony, and truncation
The two-syllable frequentatives listed in (3) are all harmonic. This is due to one of two reasons: either the suffix is selected so that it matches the harmonic class of the stem, as in (3a–c), or – somewhat surprisingly – the stem is selected so that it matches the vowel of the suffix, as in (3d–e). Stem selection is achieved by large-scale defectivity: the suffixes -kál and -ál can be attached only to monosyllabic stems that are back harmonic: ús-kál ‘swim-FREQ’, fúj-kál ‘blow-’, váj-kál ‘scoop-’; dob-ál ‘throw-’, ugr-ál ‘jump-’. Recall that a back harmonic stem does not necessarily contain a back vowel, its only vowel may also be i or í in an antiharmonic stem. This means that ir-kál ‘write-FREQ’, where the stem ír is antiharmonic (cf. ír-ok ‘-NDF.1SG’, ír-j-ak ‘-SBJV-NDF.1SG’), is not disharmonic according to our definition in §2.2. These two frequentative suffixes containing an invariant back vowel cannot occur after front harmonic stems (e.g., *néz-kál ‘look-’, *lep-ál ‘cover-’). As a result, frequentative forms conform to the general vowel harmony requirements of the language: the frequentative suffix always matches the harmonic class of the stem.
Furthermore, the stem of frequentatives is not truncated: frequentatives that are exactly two syllables long all have monosyllabic stems, as in (3), while those that are exactly three syllables long all have either a monosyllabic stem extended by an augment or a disyllabic stem, as in (4). The frequentatives of longer stems only have frequentative forms with no size restriction and no restriction on minimal size, as in (5d). That is, frequentatives whose template sets a maximum size limit are also subject to stem selection: these frequentative suffixes are only available after stems that are short enough. Stems that are too long to fit the size do not have the relevant forms: e.g., olvaš ‘read’ – olvaš-gat, but *olvaš-doš, *olvaš-kod, *olvaš-kál, etc.
Accordingly, unlike diminutive forms that may in theory be derived from any stem, with truncation if necessary, frequentative derivations are highly defective: many verb stems are excluded before certain frequentative suffixes either because of their size or because of their harmonic class. As is often the case, derivation is freer in the case of nouns (and adjectives) than in the case of verbs.
5 Two morphological systems
This brings us to the central claim of this paper: the morphology of Hungarian consists of two systems. Beside the well-described concatenative system, there also exists a templatic morphological system. Forms in the two morphological systems do not obey the same constraints. We summarize these differences in (9).
| Typical properties of the two morphological systems | |||
| set size | disharmony | ||
| concatenative patterns | no | no | |
| templatic patterns | |||
| nominal (DIM) | yes | yes | |
| nominal (NOMZ) | yes | partly | |
| verbal (FREQ, INTR) | yes | no | |
Concatenative patterns are not subject to any size restriction and they also typically show the effect of vowel harmony: the majority of concatenative suffixes have at least one front- and one back-vowelled alternant which is selected to harmonize with the harmonic class of the stem. The templatic system includes diminutive, frequentative, nominalizing and verbalizing suffixes, all of which types are also available in the concatenative system. Yet, the templatic system imposes a size restriction on forms in its scope. Nominal forms derived by templatic morphology are often disharmonic, since the diminutive suffixes involved in this type of derivation do not come in front/back pairs. Disharmony is a common possibility but not a requirement for templatic nominal forms. For one thing, the front/back value of the vowel in the stem and that in the suffix may coincide: e.g., sán-kó ‘sleigh-DIM’ (vs. čer〈esňe〉-kó ‘cherry’), pör〈költ〉-es ‘stew-DIM’ (vs. alk〈oholišta〉-es ‘alcoholic’). For another, there are nondiminutive templatic nouns that are derived by harmonically alternating suffixes, see (7). The size of templatic verbal forms is also restricted (by definition), however, they are never disharmonic. This is either because the relevant suffixes have variants with harmonizing vowels, see (3a–c), (4)–(6), or because the harmonically invariant suffix is found exclusively after stems with the same harmonic property, incidentally always back, see (3d–e).
5.1 Repairing templatic nominal and verbal forms
These differences between the properties of templatic nominal and verbal forms are also reflected in the repairs applied to them. The repairs are listed in (10).12 The formula in the middle column repeats the exact or the minimal syllable count the template prescribes.
| Repairs in templatic nominal and verbal forms | |||
| syllable count | disharmony | ||
| nominal | |||
| a. DIM | = 2: truncate | not repaired | |
| b. NOMZ: -mÁň | = 3: augment/gap | harmonize: only back | |
| c. NOMZ: -dA | = 3: augment/gap | harmonize: only back | |
| verbal | |||
| d. FREQ: -kál, -ál | = 2: gap | gap | |
| e. FREQ: -dOš, -kOd, -dAl | = 2: gap | harmonize: back & round | |
| f. FREQ: -gÁl | = 3: augment/gap | harmonize: back & round | |
| g. FREQ: -gAt | ≥ 3: V-augment | harmonize: back & round | |
| h. INTR: -Ul/-Od- | = 2 / ≥ 2: allomorphy | harmonize: back & round | |
It is only two-syllable diminutive forms in which the templatic constraint on size is satisfied by the truncation of the stem, (10a), examples in (2). In two-syllable verbal frequentatives the forms that would be longer simply do not exist, we find gaps here, (10d, e), examples in (3). The other type of templatic verbal form that is limited to exactly two syllables is that created by the intransitive verbalizer -ul∼ül. In this case, there exists another, suppletive allomorph, -od∼öd∼ed-, which is suffixed to stems longer than a single syllable, (10h), examples in (6). Forms that must be exactly three syllables long, with the nominalizer, (10b, c), examples in (7), or the frequentative -gál∼gél, (10f), examples in (4), either have an augmented stem (if the stem is a single syllable) or a gap (if the stem is longer than two syllables). Frequentative forms with -gat∼get have an augment if the stem is a single syllable and since here we only have a limit on the minimal size of the form, no repair is needed for longer stems, (10g), examples in (5).
With respect to disharmony, verbal forms are typically fully repaired, since most verbal templatic suffixes are harmonic, (10e–h). In case of the two invariant frequentative suffixes disharmonic forms are avoided by not creating them, we find gaps here, (10d). In nominal forms, on the other hand, disharmony is left as is in diminutives, (10a), or it is only partially repaired, ignoring rounding harmony, (10b–c).
5.2 Disharmony in nominal and in verbal forms
In §2.2 we have briefly introduced vowel harmony, but have not disclosed that nominal and verbal forms behave differently with respect to it. Notably, nominal forms have a significantly greater tolerance towards disharmony than verbal forms.
Disharmonic word forms contain one or more back vowels and one or more front vowels. While the identity of the back vowel(s) is indifferent, front vowels do not behave the same in disharmony. To be able to better compare the two types of forms, we break down their frequencies by front vowels and in monomorphemic (simplex) and suffixed (complex) forms. In these data we exclude verbs derived from disharmonic nouns, like šofőr-köd- ‘chauffeur-VRBZ’, parfüm-öz ‘perfume-VRBZ’.
| Disharmony in nominal and verbal forms | ||||
| nominal forms | verbal forms | |||
| simplex | complex | simplex | complex | |
| high i/í | frequent | frequent | less frequent | frequent |
| mid é | frequent | frequent | very rare | rare/non-existent |
| low e | frequent | rare | very rare | very rare |
| ü/ű/ö/ő | rare | very rare | nonexistent | very rare |
We can see that nominal forms are more permissive of disharmony in almost each category. While morphologically complex disharmonic nominal and verbal forms containing i/í are both rather frequent,13 morphologically simplex verb roots (e.g., viďáz ‘take care’ or tilol ‘scutch’) occur less commonly. Morphologically simplex disharmonic verb forms with é are hard to come by (alél ‘swoon’ is one example) and harmonically invariant verbal suffixes are also less common than nominal ones (the only common invariant verbal suffix containing é is -nék ‘COND.NDF.1SG’).14 Since the only invariant nominal suffix containing e is the diminutive -es and -er, see (2), morphologically complex nominal forms are not common with e (unless the stem of such a form was disharmonic in the first place). In the case of verbs, disharmonic roots are limited to a very small number of recent loans (e.g., murdel ‘get killed’), and disharmonic complex forms are also limited to some loan roots verbalized by an invariant suffix (e.g., tend-ál ‘tend’). Strong disharmony is again limited to some nominal loan words (e.g., šofőr ‘chauffeur’, parfüm ‘perfume’, nüans ‘nuance’) and is created by a very small number of suffixes (e.g., öt-kor ‘five-TEMP’, kor-serű ‘modern, lit. age-like’). Verb roots that are strongly disharmonic do not exist at all, but a handful of loan stems are verbalized by a suffix whose vowel is apparently “deliberately” strongly disharmonic (e.g., fecc-öl ‘expend’, gründ-ol ‘start up’, cf. Kertész 2003; Rebrus, Szigetvári & Törkenczy 2023).
The presence vs. the absence of vowel harmony is a clear difference between the templatic verbal form ďeng-ül ‘weak-INTR’ (from ďenge ‘weak’), in which the final vowel is deleted to avoid hiatus and which is harmonic, and the templatic nominal form ďeng-uš ‘-DIM’, in which the final vowel is truncated to fit the two-syllable template and which is disharmonic.15
6 Elements of an analysis
In this section we aim at providing a theoretical explanation for the two issues that have come up. The first is related to the fact that in the case of nominal forms potential disharmony (invariant suffixes) and truncation (the deletion of longer sequences as a templatic repair) occur in tandem. The second observation to explain is that in verbal forms we typically find neither disharmony nor truncation, even in templatic derivation. We will apply a theory of morphophonological layers, claiming that specific phonological and phonotactic constraints are assigned to each morphological process. This theory was originally proposed by Itô & Mester (1995) and applied to Hungarian phenomena by Trón & Rebrus (2001) and Kertész (2003).
6.1 Nominal forms
As we have shown in §2.3, to satisfy the templatic requirements on diminutive nominal forms longer sound sequences are deleted, truncation takes place. This process contradicts the basic concatenative nature of the morphophonology of the language, in which both templatic restrictions and truncation are absent. While suffixes added to truncated stems are harmonically invariant, those used in concatenative processes typically harmonize. This difference surfaces especially noticeably in the two types of diminutive formation, where the exponent of the suffix in the two subsystems may even be identical: the harmonically invariant -ka in the templatic system as opposed to the variable -ka∼ke in the concatenative system. This results in disharmonic forms produced of truncated front-vowelled stems, where the concatenative counterparts are harmonic: e.g., Ter-ka vs. Teréz-ke ‘Theresa-DIM’; Peť-ka vs. Péter-ke ‘Peter-DIM’. This contrast is totally general, as shown by the examples in (8), it can be found between other templatic diminutive and phonologically similar concatenative suffixes: e.g., Fer〈enc〉-kó ‘Francis-DIM’ vs. Ferenc-től ‘-ABL’; seň-a (< sendvič) ‘sandwich-DIM’ vs. sendvič-e ‘-POSS.3SG’; kol〈légium〉-es ‘dorm-DIM’ vs. kollégium-hoz ‘-ALL’.
We use a subsumption hierarchy in the explanation: the morphophonological layer requiring suffixes to harmonize (inhibiting disharmony in word forms) is a subset of the layer requiring the integrity of the word stem (inhibiting truncation). Using all capitals for the layers as sets: INTEGRITY ⊇ HARMONY.16 Morphological processes exhibiting truncation (notably templatic diminutive formation) are outside the INTEGRITY layer, as a consequence they are also outside the HARMONY layer. Concatenative processes, which are not templatic, are almost exclusively within the HARMONY layer, as a consequence they harmonize. We sketch the three layers in an Euler diagram in (12). For the sake of simplicity, we assume that HARMONY ⊃ CONCAT, that is, we disregard the very rare harmonically invariant concatenative suffixes, which may create disharmony in word forms.
| Subsumption hierarchy of morphophonological layers |
 |
The summaries in (9) and (10) show that there exist templatic nominal derivations that do not allow truncation. These nominalized forms exhibit front/back harmony (-da∼de, -máň∼méň) and typically apply augments to repair forms that would otherwise not match the three-syllable templatic requirement. These templatic nominalization processes are thus outside the innermost CONCAT layer, but within the HARMONY layer.17 The relevant morphological derivations are shown in (13).
| Hierarchy of morphophonological layers and the positions of nominal suffixes |
 |
Paradigms are typically subject to a constraint referred to as Harmonic Uniformity (Rebrus & Szigetvári 2016; Rebrus, Szigetvári & Törkenczy 2023). This means that a morphologically complex word form inherits the harmonic class of its root. Since cél is an antiharmonic root belonging to the back harmonic class (cél-hoz ‘goal-ALL’), the suffixed form cél-é is also back harmonic (cél-é-hoz ‘goal-POSR-ALL’). A monomorphemic stem with the same vocalism cannot be back harmonic (e.g., stélé-hez/*hoz ‘stele-ALL’). Now while a templatic diminutive form is potentially disharmonic, when it is subject to further concatenative suffixation vowel harmony is applied as expected: the templatic diminutive stem behaves as a monomorphemic form, defying Harmonic Uniformity.
| Harmonic Uniformity does not apply to truncated diminutive forms |
| Lina ‘Lina’ – Liná-nak ‘-DAT’ vs. Lin-i ‘-DIM’ – Lin-i-nek ‘-DIM-DAT’ |
| Teréz ‘Theresa’ – Teréz-nek ‘-DAT’ vs. Ter-ka ‘-DIM’ – Ter-ká-nak ‘-DIM-DAT’ |
| tista ‘clean’ – tistá-hoz ‘-ALL’, tist-ít ‘-VRBZ’ – tist-ít-ok ‘-VRBZ-NDF.1SG’ |
The diminutive Lin-i of the back harmonic name Lina is front harmonic, as any other monomorphemic stem containing two front vowels, but contra Harmonic Uniformity, (14a). Likewise, the diminutive Ter-ka of the front harmonic name Teréz is back harmonic, (14b). On the other hand, the transitive verb form tist-ít is back harmonic, inheriting the harmonic class of its root, tista, due to Harmonic Uniformity, (14c).
This indicates that nominal truncation is outside the INTEGRITY and as a consequence also the HARMONY layers. The CONCAT layer is inside HARMONY, hence a form subject to concatenative morphology typically harmonizes, even if it has not done so in the previous round.
6.2 Verbal forms
Unlike templatic diminutive forms in which the two-syllable template is satisfied by the truncation of the stem, verb stems are practically never truncated.18 This means all morphological processes that derive verb forms are within the INTEGRITY layer. Furthermore, verb forms are almost exclusively harmonic, that is, they are also within the HARMONY layer. In fact, in our subsumption hierarchy this entails being within the INTEGRITY layer. Thus verb forms are distributed across the boundary of the CONCAT layer, most of them within it, some of them, the templatic ones, outside it, but still within the HARMONY layer. This explains that templatic frequentative forms that would be longer than what the template allows are not produced. Shorter stems can be expanded by augments. This is depicted in (15).
| Hierarchy of morphological layers and the positions of verbal suffixes |
 |
We submit that the different harmonic properties of nominal and verbal forms, namely, that verbal forms are almost never disharmonic, while nominal forms often are, are related to the differences we have found between the two groups in §5.2. Disharmonic monomorphemic nominal forms containing front unrounded and back vowels are frequent, while the few disharmonic monomorphemic verbal forms almost all contain i or í, and very rarely either of the other two front unrounded vowels, é or e. Strong disharmony (front rounded and back vowels together) are outright impossible in a monomorphemic verb form, while we do find examples for this combination in the nominal domain. We thus make the generalization that verbal forms may not be disharmonic, they are all within the HARMONY layer. The distribution of both nominal and verbal forms in the subsumption hierarchy is depicted in (16). The greater independence of nominal forms is manifested in their domain extending beyond both the HARMONY and the INTEGRITY layers.
| The morphological layers and derivation types discussed in this paper |
 |
7 Conclusion
We have shown that morphological processes (in Hungarian) are layered. The central layer, CONCAT, contains the most frequently applied processes, which are concatenative, with no restrictions on the size of word forms. Processes outside this layer are templatic, constraining either the exact or the minimal size of word forms counted in syllables. The next, larger layer is HARMONY, processes within this layer create word forms whose vocalism is by and large, harmonic. Since this layer contains CONCAT, concatenative forms are also harmonic. Templatic verbal forms are harmonic, since forms that would be disharmonic are simply not created, but some templatic nominal forms show only partial, front/back, but not rounding harmony. This suggests that there are (at least) two harmony layers, but we have not gone into details in this paper. We have also not examined if the HARMONY and the INTEGRITY layers are coextensive or if there are processes outside the former but within the latter.
The outermost layer is INTEGRITY, morphological processes outside this layer cause the truncation of the stem so that the resulting word forms fit in the given template. Any process that is outside INTEGRITY is also outside HARMONY, so these forms will only have harmonizing vowels if the vowels of the stem and the suffix happen to be so. Verbal forms remain within the HARMONY layer, while nominal forms may be created by morphological processes that disregard both vowel harmony and the integrity of the stem.
Acknowledgements
We thank our anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. Our work is sponsored by the NKFIH grant #139271 (The role of paradigm structure in Hungarian morphology and phonology with typological comparisons).
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The difference between inflection and derivation is scalar. On the special status of diminutives among derived forms see Kiefer & Ladányi (2000). We here follow the tradition of taking them to be instances of derivation.
To avoid difficult but irrelevant decisions about transcription, we give the spelled forms of words, but use the better-known háčeked letters instead of the established but parochial consonant digraphs.
Stem-final vowel deletion and truncation overlap: this process occurs both in concatenative morphology, see (1c), and in templatic morphology, see the case of gazd-i in (2a) or ďeng-uš in (2e). Vowel harmony may nevertheless tell them apart, see §5.2.
We use paradigm in its extended sense: the paradigm of a stem contains not only forms resulting from inflection but also those resulting from derivation (Steriade 2000).
When stem final, o is long due to an independent phonotactic constraint in the language.
The -i- augment and kapir-gál imitate the vocalism of several forms whose stem ends in -ít: gurít ‘roll’ – gurigál, hajít ‘hurl’ – hajigál, tasít ‘toss’ – tasigál, šántít ‘limp’ – šántikál, sundít ‘sleep’ – sundikál, as well as táncol ‘dance’ – tánci-kál. The last three forms expand beyond the two-syllable template expected of -kál, cf. (3d). A similar expansion of the generally two-syllable diminutive template is observed in nominal forms that appear to be doubly diminutivized: cf. ap〈a〉-u-ci ‘father-DIM-DIM’, kuť〈a〉-ul-i ‘dog-DIM-DIM’, láb-i-kó ‘foot-DIM-DIM’, etc.
We found two exceptions: hall-gat ‘keep silent, listen’, the meaning of which is lexicalized (cf. hall ‘hear’, with a rare but regular frequentative form (meg)hall-o-gat), and rán〈t〉-gat ‘jerk-’, with exceptional obligatory consonant deletion (also note the rare but regular form ránt-o-gat).
This cluster is optionally split in %ijest-e-get, as opposed to the frequent form ijes(t)-get ‘scare-’.
The distribution in (6) is further modified or complicated by (i) some minor narrow-scope subregularities (e.g., -od∼ed∼öd- often does not occur after d/t-final stems: *selid-ed-, selid-ül ‘tame-INTR’, *šüket-ed-, šüket-ül ‘mute-INTR’, a similarity avoidance effect), (ii) poetic, archaic, lexicalised, or idiosyncratic forms, and (iii) stems that are not a morphologically simplex adjective (e.g., alkoň-ul ‘twilight-INTR’, which has a nominal stem, pender-ül ‘spring’, where the category of the stem is undefined, čoport-oš-ul ‘group-ADJZ-INTR’, here the stem is not simplex).
These two nominal templates are not exclusive, we find a couple of two-syllable nouns containing these two suffixes of (7): él-méň ‘experience, lit. live-NOMZ’, fešt-méň ‘paint-ing’, vív-máň ‘upshot, lit. fence-NOMZ’; jár-da ‘sidewalk, lit. walk-NOMZ’, ňom-da ‘printshop, lit. print-NOMZ’, čús-da ‘spout, lit. slide-NOMZ’, zúz-da ‘beating-machine, lit. smash-NOMZ’, fog-da ‘jail, lit. hold-NOMZ’, zár-da ‘nunnery, lit. close-NOMZ’.
Some of these diminutive endings were formerly in use and they survive in obsolete diminutive forms (e.g., Gerg〈ej〉-ő) the majority of which are used only as family names or nondiminutive given names in present-day Hungarian: e.g., Benő, Benkő, Gerő, Pető, Šebő; Dežő, Ernő, Döme, Ede, Füle, Mike, Ďöre, etc.
Capital vowel letters are the conventional abbreviations of harmonically alternating vowels: A = a∼e, Á = á∼é, U = u∼ü, O = o∼ö∼e.
There are numerous harmonically invariant suffixes containing i/í in both nominal (e.g., -i ‘ADJZ’, -i ‘PL.POSS’, -ig ‘TERM’, -ňi ‘NUMZ’) and verbal paradigms (e.g., -ik ‘NDF.3SG’, -ni ‘INF’, -ít ‘VRBZ’, -int ‘MOM’).
Only some speakers have an invariant suffix here: vet-nék ‘sow-COND.NDF.1SG’, fut-nék ‘run-’. For many other speakers, this suffix alternates regularly: vet-nék, fut-nák. The latter group has no invariant verbal suffix with é.
Note that unlike verbal forms, nominal forms tolerate hiatus, cf. múzeum ‘museum’ or Be〈a〉-uš, which contains the same diminutive suffix as ďeng-uš added to the truncated stem of a name.
We have not yet found any processes outside the HARMONY but inside the INTEGRITY layer. If indeed there are no such processes the two layers may contain each other, i.e., be identical. We do not examine this possibility in this paper.
As we have explained at the end of §2, compared to the complete vowel harmony system, the harmony processes in these suffixes is only partial, the augment vowel between the stem and the suffix does not exhibit regular rounding harmony: -o-máň∼e-méň∼*ö-méň and -o-da∼ö-de∼*e-de. Thus our analysis is forced to posit two kinds of HARMONY layers, one for front/back harmony and another one for rounding harmony. The nominalization processes in question are outside this latter layer. Distinguishing the morphological conditions of the two kinds of harmony seems to be necessary for other reasons, too: Polgárdi & Rebrus (1998), Rebrus, Szigetvári & Törkenczy (2024). Such a modification also interacts with the potential merger of INTEGRITY and HARMONY mentioned in the previous footnote.
Truncated verb stems are marginally used as second person imperative forms: mut〈at〉-i ‘show’, ad-i ‘give’, fiď〈el〉-i ‘listen’, léď s〈iveš〉-i ‘please, lit. be.SBJV/IMPV.2SG kind’. Although subjunctive and imperative forms are generally interchangeable in Hungarian, these templatic verb forms cannot be used as subjunctive, only as 2nd singular imperative. Diminutive verb forms are more commonly derived by a verbalizing suffix: e.g., šim〈ogat〉-i-z- ‘caress-DIM-VRBZ’, piš〈a〉-i-l ‘pee-DIM-VRBZ’. Crucially these verbs have a diminutive nominal stem that is free (šimi ‘caressing’, piši ‘pee’).
