Gondolataiban

Gondolataiban is a Hungarian phrase meaning “in his or her thoughts” and is used to indicate the location of a person’s inner reflections. It is formed from gondolat, meaning “thought,” plus possessive and inessive endings to express that the thoughts belong to a specific person and exist within that person’s mind. It is a common, non-idiomatic expression in everyday language and in literary prose alike.

Grammatically, gondolataiban functions as a prepositional phrase embedded in a sentence, attaching to the subject of thought. It is typically used in descriptive narration to convey what someone is thinking while external events unfold, without quoting those thoughts verbatim. The phrase can be combined with different subjects and tenses, reflecting inward states such as memory, speculation, or concern.

Example: A férfi elhallgatott; gondolataiban járta végig a múltat.

It is formed through a standard Hungarian morphological process: gondolat + -a (possessive) → gondolata, then -iban in the inessive plural. The construction illustrates Hungarian’s extensive use of postposed suffixes to encode person, number, and case.