Upload failed. Maybe wrong permissions?

User Tools

Site Tools




I have an Iwouldbeabletoeat

I don’t know how special a Hungarianism it is, but very interesting indeed. This conjugation is a bit archaic and rural, you’ll barely meet it in texts from modern sources, but natives will understand it. Let’s start from the little bits, three verbs of the most common ones, all irregular of course. I show their roots as well.
  
  eszik, e- – s/he eats
  iszik, i- – s/he drinks
  megy, me- – s/he goes
  
  Note that these all third person singular forms, being that one the dictionary form.
  Now let’s take the root and add the optative suffix -hat, -het which means “can, may, be able to, allowed to”. Iszik takes back vowel suffixes.
  
  ehet – s/he can eat
  ihat – s/he can drink
  mehet – s/he can go
  
  Now let’s add the conditional suffix -na, -ne which means “would.”
  
  ehetne – s/he would be able to eat
  ihatna – s/he would be able to drink
  mehetne – s/he would be able to go
  
  Let’s look around the personal suffixes for these forms.
  
  ehetnék – I would be able to eat
  ehetnél – you would be able to eat
  ehetne – s/he would be able to eat
  ehetnénk – we would be able to eat
  ehetnétek – y’all would be able to eat
  ehetnének – they would be able to eat
  
  ihatnék – I would be able to drink1
  ihatnál – you would be able to drink
  ihatna – s/he would be able to drink
  ihatnánk – we would be able to drink
  ihatnátok – y’all would be able to drink
  ihatnának – they would be able to drink
  
  mehetnék – I would be able to go
  mehetnél – you would be able to go
  mehetne – s/he would be able to go
  mehetnénk – we would be able to go
  mehetnétek – y’all would be able to go
  mehetnének – they would be able to go
  
  Now, let’s see the first person singular forms: ehetnék, ihatnék, mehetnék. You can use them as phrasal words to urge someone you are depending on, and being slow they’ll delaying you. Ehetnék! “I would eat, it’s time to!” That’s not very polite, though. It’s nicer to use the third person plural and ask it as a question: Ehetnénk? “Could we eat, finally?”
  But let’s stay with the first person singular. You can turn it into a noun. Just use it so, and use it in a possessive structure.
  
  ehetnékem van – I have an Iwouldbeabletoeat
  ihatnékom van – I have an Iwouldbeabletodrink
  mehetnékem van – I have an Iwouldbeabletogo
  
  This means, practically, “I’d like to eat, drink, go, I feel the urge to, it’s time for it”, but doesn’t contain the element of urging someone, you can use it when you’re preparing the food or drink or getting on the way yourself.

»»»»»»

1 the rules of vowel harmony would require ihatnák here, but this is considered uneducated speech, use irregular ihatnék instead