utótagot

Utótag (with the accusative form utótagot) is the suffix in linguistic terms, a morpheme added to the end of a word to express grammatical function or to derive a new word. In Hungarian linguistics, utótagok are the collection of suffixes that attach to a stem to mark features such as number, case, possession, mood, tense, or part of speech. They are one of the main classes of affixes, alongside prefixes, infixes, and circumfixes, and they typically follow the stem in a fixed order within a word.

Suffixes can be inflectional, changing a word’s grammatical role without altering its core word class (for example, indicating plural or location), or derivational, forming new words or shifting the word’s class (such as turning a noun into an adjective or vice versa). In Hungarian, suffix selection often follows vowel harmony, so the form of a suffix changes to fit the stem’s vowels. This makes suffixes highly productive for word formation and grammatical marking.

Common examples of utótagok include locative suffixes such as -ban/-ben (in), directional suffixes like -hoz/-hez/-höz (toward), and plural variants such as -ak/-ek/-ök (depending on the stem). For instance, ház + -ban yields házban (in the house), and ház + -ak yields házak (houses). Possessive suffixes attach to nouns to indicate ownership, as in házam (my house) or házad (your house).

Understanding utótagot and other utótagok is essential for analyzing Hungarian morphology, including how words change form in different grammatical contexts and how new words are created through derivation.