Hosszabbat

Hosszabbat is a form related to the Hungarian adjective hosszú, meaning “long.” In standard Hungarian, the usual comparative form is hosszabb (longer). Hosszabbat is not a common, widely taught form in contemporary prescriptive grammar; it appears mainly as a dialectal, archaic, or pronominal variant in some contexts.

Linguistic notes:

The base adjective hosszú can take the comparative suffix -abb to yield hosszabb, but when the form is used as a pronoun or in a noun phrase referring to “the longer one,” the form can appear in the accusative-like ending -at, producing hosszabbat. In this use, hosszabbat functions similarly to a demonstrative pronoun: it stands in for a noun that is understood from context (e.g., two options are being compared).

Usage and examples:

- Két könyv közül a hosszabbat olvasom ki: I’m reading the longer one out of two books.

- A hosszabbat választottam: I chose the longer one.

- In many contexts, speakers would prefer a full noun phrase (“a hosszabb könyvet”) or simply the standard comparative hosszabb in predicative clauses.

Varieties and reception:

Hosszabbat is more likely to be heard in regional speech, older texts, or informal speech. In modern standard Hungarian teaching and formal writing, hosszabb is the preferred form for the comparative, and a noun phrase using hosszabb könyvet or similar constructions is common when specifying what is longer.

See also:

- hosszú

- hosszabb

- leghosszabb

- magyar nyelvtan (Hungarian grammar)