Oldalnak

Oldalnak is the dative singular form of the Hungarian noun oldal, meaning side or page. In Hungarian grammar, the suffix -nak (or -nek, depending on vowel harmony) marks the dative case, indicating the indirect object, beneficiary, or destination of an action. Thus oldalnak functions to express “to the side” or “to the page” in phrases where oldal is the noun conveying the target or recipient.

Etymology and form: The base noun oldal combines with the dative suffix -nak to yield oldalnak. For plural usage, the form would change to oldalaknak, corresponding to the plural noun oldalak. The choice of -nak reflects the back-vowel harmony pattern in Hungarian, where back-vowel stems take -nak and front-vowel stems take -nek.

Usage notes: oldalnak is primarily encountered as part of syntactic constructions that require a dative noun phrase. It is not a common standalone lexical item in everyday speech; rather, it appears in grammatical descriptions, linguistic analyses, or formal writing to illustrate the dative case of a concrete noun. In practical Hungarian, recipients or beneficiaries are often expressed with pronouns or with noun phrases in the dative using other nouns more typical for such roles.

Relation to related terms: It is related to the broader Hungarian noun case system, especially the dative (indirect object) case. The base word oldal is also used in meanings linked to “page” (as in a page of a book) or “side” (as in a physical side of an object), with partikular dative usage depending on context.

See also: oldal, dative case (Hungarian), Hungarian grammar, suffix -nak/-nek.