táplálékon

Táplálékon is a grammatical form derived from the Hungarian noun táplálék, meaning “food” or “nutritive substance.” The suffix –on indicates a compound postpositional ending, which corresponds to the nominative case in other languages and serves to express the locative or instrumental sense. In Hungarian, because cases are expressed by suffixes in combination with prepositions, the form táplálékon is used after certain prepositions such as a, ab, és, f, t, tő, tí, világ, where it indicates a location, accompaniment, or means.

The construction typically occurs in contexts that ask for the means or the place of an action. For example, “A gyerekek táplálékon látják a grafikonokat” literally means “The children see the charts on food,” but the intended sense is “in the context of food” or “related to food.” The form can also be used figuratively to denote a subject area, e.g., “A kutató a táplálékon dolgozik” translates as “The researcher works in the field of food science.”

Táplálékon – unlike the simple nominative táplálék – is not a separate lexical item but a syntactically bound form that indicates a relation of place, means, or belonging. It is therefore primarily found in written and formal Hungarian texts, academic literature, and legal documents where precise grammatical distinctions are required. The form is rarely used in everyday speech, where speakers normally employ simpler constructions with prepositions and separate nouns.