Rövidülni

Rövidülni is a Hungarian verb meaning to become shorter or to be shortened. It can describe physical shortening of objects, the reduction of an interval of time, or a change in form where a word or phrase is reduced in length. In linguistic discussion, rövidülni is used to refer to phonological shortening—when a vowel, syllable, or other segment has its duration reduced as part of a phonetic or historical change. The corresponding noun rövidülés denotes the process of becoming shorter, while rövidítés refers to the act of making something shorter by abbreviation or contraction.

The term is used in both everyday language and technical contexts. In ordinary speech one can speak of a rope, a route, or a schedule that has shortened, or of a speech segment that length has diminished. In linguistics it commonly appears in analyses of sound change or prosody, where shortening is a specific phenomenon under study. The verb is intransitive and generally describes the undergoing of change by the subject. For the act of deliberately creating an abbreviated form, Hungarian typically uses rövidíteni or rövidítés rather than rövidülni.

Etymology: rövidülni is built from the adjective rövid meaning “short” plus the suffix -ül- and the infinitive ending -ni, a productive pattern for Hungarian verbs that denote a change of state.

See also: rövidítés, rövidülés, rövidíteni.