Event Nominals in -ás/-és: Forms and Core Pattern

Hungarian productively turns verbs into nouns with -ás/-és: olvas “read” becomes olvasás “reading,” and kér “ask/request” becomes kérés “asking; request.” These forms name an event, process, or sometimes its conventional result. Because they are nouns—not invariant infinitives or English-style gerunds—they can take articles, possessive endings, case suffixes, and postpositions.

The most important structural fact is that the nominal may still preserve the verb’s participants. Hungarian often expresses the event’s actor or affected object through possessive-like structure, even though the whole expression behaves as a noun phrase.

Forming the event nominal

Attach -ás after a back-vowel stem and -és after a front-vowel stem. The long vowel in the suffix is obligatory. The choice follows the same harmony principles described in Back and Front Vowel Harmony.

Verbs in -ik lose the dictionary ending before derivation: találkozik → találkozás “meeting,” fejlődik → fejlődés “development.” Some verbs also show familiar stem alternations: megy → menés “going,” for example. There is no perfectly mechanical way to predict every established noun, and dictionary checking is appropriate when a derived form sounds unfamiliar.

Prefixes remain inside the noun

A verbal prefix normally stays attached to the nominalized stem: elolvasás “reading through,” megérkezés “arrival,” benyújtás “submission,” kifizetés “payment.” A finite verb can split its prefix under negation or focus, but an event noun cannot freely send its prefix elsewhere in the clause.

The second example contains the adjectival derivative benyújtási “submission-related,” built from benyújtás. Such stacking is common in (formal) and administrative Hungarian, but it can become dense quickly.

Negating a nominalization directly, as in a szerződés alá nem írása, is possible in (formal) language, but everyday Hungarian usually chooses a finite clause: az, hogy nem írta alá a szerződést “the fact that he/she did not sign the contract.” This is a register choice, not a missing conjugation rule.

Possessive marking identifies participants

An intransitive event’s actor commonly appears as the possessor, and the nominal bears a third-person possessive ending:

Segment the core phrase as a vendégek meg-érkez-és-e: “the guests’ arrive-event-their,” more idiomatically “the arrival of the guests.” The ending -e does not mean ordinary ownership. It links a participant to the event.

The possessive paradigm is fully available:

The independent pronoun is normally unnecessary because -em already identifies the participant. When a lexical possessor is topical or contrastive, Hungarian can mark it with dative -nak/-nek and usually include the article before the nominal:

The neutral, less contrastive form is Péter megérkezése. Dative marking is therefore not a mechanical translation of English of; it interacts with definiteness and information structure. See Hungarian Possessive Structures for the full nominal pattern.

Specific objects and bare-object incorporation

English can place an accusative object after a gerund: reading the book. A Hungarian event nominal is a true noun and does not simply preserve that English verbal sequence. A specific affected object commonly stands before the noun in a possessive-like construction:

Here a könyv is unmarked, not accusative a könyvet, and elolvasása carries third-person possessive -a. Likewise:

For a generic, non-specific activity, Hungarian can incorporate a bare object into a compound: könyvolvasás “book-reading,” levélírás “letter-writing,” nyelvtanulás “language learning.” These are written as single words when ordinary compound spelling permits.

Compare könyvolvasás, a type of activity, with a könyv elolvasása, the complete reading of an identifiable book. The prefix el- often contributes boundedness or completion in the second phrase.

If both an agent and a specific object must be explicit, the nominal structure can become heavy. (Formal) Hungarian permits phrases such as a szerződés ügyvéd általi ellenőrzése “the contract’s review by a lawyer.” Neutral speech normally uses a finite clause instead: az, hogy az ügyvéd ellenőrzi a szerződést “that the lawyer reviews the contract.”

Retained case frames

Non-object complements often retain the case required by the verb. The linking word való is common when a case-marked phrase modifies the event noun.

The verb ragaszkodik selects -hoz/-hez/-höz: ragaszkodik a régi módszerhez. The nominal phrase keeps módszerhez. Similarly, találkozik valakivel corresponds to valakivel való találkozás. This retained frame is one reason the noun still feels eventive.

The event noun itself can then take a case suffix:

The ending -ról belongs to the entire event nominal, while a kérelem identifies what was rejected.

Articles and noun behavior

A specific, modified event phrase normally has an article: a vonat késése “the train’s delay,” az új rendszer bevezetése “the introduction of the new system.” A generic activity used as a subject also commonly takes an article:

Articleless forms occur in established adverbial frames and labels: olvasás közben “while reading,” érkezés után “after arrival,” nyitás: kilenc óra “opening: nine o’clock.” English article usage is not a safe guide.

Segmentation exercise

Split each form into meaningful layers before reading the answer.

1. megérkezésetekkor
2. elolvasásáról
3. könyvolvasással

Answers:

1. meg-érkez-és-etek-kor: prefix + verb stem + event nominal + second-person plural possessive + temporal -kor, “when you arrive.”
2. el-olvas-ás-a-ról: prefix + verb stem + event nominal + third-person possessive + delative, “about its/the reading-through.”
3. könyv-olvas-ás-sal: incorporated bare object + verb stem + event nominal + instrumental, “by/with book-reading.” The initial v of -val/-vel assimilates to the final s, producing written ss.

Common Mistakes

Using the wrong harmonic suffix

Keeping an English-style accusative object

Omitting the participant-marking ending

Writing a generic compound as two words

Key Takeaways

• Productive -ás/-és follows vowel harmony and creates a noun, not a finite verb or invariant infinitive.
• Prefixes stay attached inside the event nominal; stem alternations and lexicalized nouns require dictionary awareness.
• Possessive morphology preserves participant relations: megérkezésem means “my arriving.”
• A specific object appears in a possessive-like structure such as a könyv elolvasása; a generic object may form a compound such as könyvolvasás.
• Verb-selected non-object cases can survive in the noun phrase, often linked by való.
• Articles, possessive suffixes, and outer case endings confirm that the whole construction behaves as a Hungarian noun phrase.