személyragú

Személyragú is a Hungarian term that translates roughly to "personal pronoun suffix" or "personal affix." It refers to grammatical suffixes that are attached to a word, typically a noun or a verb, to indicate the person and number of the subject or possessor. This grammatical feature is a fundamental aspect of Hungarian morphology and plays a crucial role in conveying grammatical information.

In Hungarian, these suffixes are essential for conjugating verbs and indicating possession. For example, when a verb is conjugated, a személyragú is added to its stem to show who is performing the action and how many people are involved. Similarly, when a noun indicates possession, a personal suffix is attached to show whose it is (e.g., my book, your car).

The system of személyragú in Hungarian is quite extensive, with distinct suffixes for first, second, and third person, as well as singular and plural forms. These suffixes can also vary based on vowel harmony, a phonological rule in Hungarian where vowels within a word tend to harmonize. Understanding and correctly applying these personal suffixes is considered a key challenge for learners of the Hungarian language. They are not independent words but are integrated directly into the word they modify, creating a concise and agglutinative grammatical structure.