Plural Possessor Endings: Forms and Core Pattern

Hungarian marks a plural possessor on the possessed noun: házunk “our house,” házatok “your house” when addressing several people, and házuk “their house.” These forms still describe one possessed house. The number encoded by -unk/-ünk, -tok/-tek/-tök, and -uk/-ük belongs to the possessor, not automatically to the item.

This page builds the forms for one possessed item. The possessed-plural forms page handles “our houses,” while the companion usage page develops discourse contexts. Unless marked otherwise, forms are neutral modern standard Hungarian.

The core consonant-stem paradigm

The three plural-possessor categories are first person “our,” second person plural informal “your,” and third person “their.” Vowel harmony determines the suffix vowel.

First person has a two-way harmonic choice: back -unk versus front -ünk. Third person similarly uses back -uk/-juk versus front -ük/-jük. Second person preserves rounding in the linking vowel: házatok, könyvetek, bőrötök.

With ti, the possessive ending is plural informal “your.” Addressing one friend requires könyved, not könyvetek. English your hides this singular–plural distinction; Hungarian makes it obligatory.

Why second-person plural looks longer

After most consonant-final stems, -tok/-tek/-tök needs a linking vowel, producing surface sequences such as -atok, -etek, -ötök, and in other stem classes -otok.

Harmony eliminates many wrong forms but does not fully predict házatok versus barátotok. That difference belongs to noun inflectional class, just like házam versus barátom in the singular-possessor system.

The second sentence has plural possessed items and a plural possessor: kabát-jai-tok. It is included to show the contrast, not to replace the separate possessed-plural paradigm.

Vowel-final stems

With a vowel-final noun, the endings attach without the consonant-stem linking vowel. First person often surfaces as -nk, second person as -tok/-tek/-tök, and third person uses a j-initial form.

Final short a/e lengthens before the ending, as szoba → szobánk, szobátok, szobájuk. Long ó, ő, é remain long. The harmony behavior of loanwords such as kávé belongs to the whole lexical stem, so the final written vowel alone is not always a safe guide.

Third-person plural and lexical j

The “their” ending appears as -uk/-ük or -juk/-jük. Vowel-final stems take j: autójuk, cipőjük. Consonant stems follow the same largely lexical j pattern seen in third-person singular.

Do not interpret j as the marker of plurality: barátja has j but one possessor, whereas házuk has no j but several possessors. The final -k in -uk/-ük/-juk/-jük is what distinguishes the third-person plural possessor forms.

Here kalapjukat has the possessive ending followed by accusative -at. The sentence treats the hats distributively in ordinary usage even though the inner possessed form is morphologically singular; when the number of hats itself must be explicit, Hungarian can use kalapjaikat.

Stem alternations remain visible

Some nouns use an alternate stem before possessive endings. Kéz has kezünk, kezetek, kezük; ló has the lov- stem in lovunk, lovatok, lovuk. These are lexical stem alternations, not failures of vowel harmony.

There is no honest one-rule shortcut for these nouns. Record an alternating noun with a representative possessed form and consult the noun stem-class forms page.

Overt personal possessors

An overt first- or second-person possessor agrees with the suffix and normally follows the definite article: a mi házunk, a ti házatok. It is used for contrast; without contrast, a házunk or a házatok is enough.

Third-person plural has a notable pattern: possessive ő is used, not nominative ők, before the noun: az ő házuk “their house.” The plural possessor is shown by -uk on the possessed noun.

With an ordinary plural noun possessor, the compact phrase is a diákok tanára “the students' teacher,” not mechanically a diákok tanáruk. The overt lexical possessor already carries plural -k, while the possessed noun uses the third-person singular-type form. Dative possessors allow further agreement patterns at higher levels, addressed on the dative-possessor forms page.

Polite “your” and third-person forms

Hungarian polite pronouns take third-person grammar. With the possessor omitted, csomagjuk can mean “their parcel” or polite plural “your parcel”; context decides. When Önök is overt, the standard compact noun phrase is az Önök csomagja, with the lexical-possessor pattern, not az Önök csomagjuk.

Both are formal plural address. In the first, third-person plural agreement on csomagjuk and átvehetik can also receive an ordinary “their/they” reading outside direct address. The overt Önök removes that ambiguity.

Segmentation exercise

1. házunkban → ház-unk-ban: house + our + in.
2. barátotokkal → barát-otok-kal: friend + your-plural + with; v of -val assimilates to k.
3. kertjükből → kert-jük-ből: garden + their + out of.
4. autójukhoz → autó-juk-hoz: car + their + toward.
5. szobánk → szobá-nk: room, with a → á, + our.
6. kezünket → kez-ünk-et: alternating stem of kéz
   • our + accusative.

The order is stem → possessor ending → case. Do not place a case inside the possessive ending or add English-style ownership marking to the possessor.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• One possessed item takes -unk/-ünk for “our,” -(V)tok/-(V)tek/-(V)tök for plural informal “your,” and -uk/-ük or -juk/-jük for “their.”
• Stem class controls second-person linking vowels; third-person j variation is largely lexical.
• Vowel-final stems attach endings directly, and final short a/e lengthen.
• Overt possessive pronouns agree as a mi házunk, a ti házatok, az ő házuk; possessive ő, not ők, precedes the noun.
• Polite plural omitted possession can use a third-person plural form, while overt az Önök normally follows the lexical-possessor construction: az Önök szobája.