Plural Possessor Endings: Meanings and Usage

Hungarian normally identifies an owner on the thing possessed, not with a separate equivalent of English our, your, or their. The endings covered here say that the possessor is plural: -unk/-ünk “our,” -tok/-tek/-tök “your” when speaking to several people, and -uk/-ük or a j-containing variant for “their.” These endings identify the number and person of the owners; they do not by themselves say whether there is one possessed thing or several.

Our: -unk/-ünk and -nk

After many consonant-final stems, first-person plural has -unk after a back-vowel stem and -ünk after a front-vowel stem. The choice follows vowel harmony: házunk “our house,” but kertünk “our garden.” Rounded front vowels can appear in the stem without forcing a special third suffix here: örömünk “our joy.” After a vowel-final noun, the ending is usually simply -nk, as in autónk, kávénk, and cipőnk. Long vowels remain long.

The possessed noun commonly takes the definite article: a lakásunk, az autónk. Hungarian can omit the article in existential expressions such as van időnk “we have time” and nincs autónk “we do not have a car.” This is not random article deletion: the construction introduces whether such a possession exists rather than pointing to an already identified object.

Your, when you means several people

For more than one addressee, consonant-final stems commonly take -otok/-etek/-ötök after the necessary linking vowel: házatok, kertetek, örömötök. Describing the ending as -tok/-tek/-tök remains useful because vowel-final stems attach exactly those shapes: autótok, kávétok, cipőtök. Harmony determines which vowel appears.

Although kabátotok has plural owners, it is grammatically one possessed noun. Context can make it collective—perhaps the people being addressed have one coat each—but Hungarian has not marked the coats themselves as plural. Use kabátjaitok when it matters that several coats are meant. English speakers often let the English translation decide the Hungarian number too early; instead, picture the number of items in the Hungarian scene.

The explicit pronoun ti is normally unnecessary because the ending already identifies the addressees. A ti vonatotok is natural when contrasting it with somebody else's train, correcting an assumption, or shifting the topic.

Here the full possessors mi and ti are neutral but contrastive. Repeating them in every sentence sounds heavier than ordinary conversation.

Their: -uk/-ük and the j-pattern

Third-person plural has two productive surface patterns. Many nouns take -uk/-ük, such as házuk “their house” and könyvük “their book.” Others have a j before the ending: kertjük, barátjuk, autójuk. Harmony still controls u/ü, but harmony does not predict the presence of j. Stem shape offers tendencies, not a perfectly reliable rule, so learn a new noun together with a singular possessive form such as kertje or barátja.

In az ő tervük, Hungarian uses the attributive pronoun ő, not ők. The plural possessor ending -ük carries the number. This is a major English-speaker trap because English their displays plural ownership in the word before the noun.

An overt plural noun behaves differently

When the possessor is an explicit plural lexical noun, standard Hungarian normally uses the default third-person singular possessive form on the possessed noun: a szülők lakása “the parents' apartment,” a gyerekek tanára “the children's teacher.” It does not copy plural number onto the noun as lakásuk or tanáruk. Linguists often call this anti-agreement.

The second example gives the possessor the dative ending -nak/-nek and includes the article before the possessed noun. This expanded pattern is common when the possessor is long, contrastive, or prominent. It still has főnöke, not főnökük. See dative possessors for the information-structure details.

By contrast, an overt pronoun follows the pronominal agreement pattern: az ő lakásuk “their apartment.” This noun-versus-pronoun split is genuinely nontransparent and must be learned.

Polite reference and formal address

Hungarian polite Ön “you” and Önök “you all” take third-person grammar. With the overt formal pronoun, use az Ön címe and az Önök címe. Just like an overt plural lexical possessor, Önök does not trigger -ük on the possessed noun.

This is (formal) language suitable for administration or polite service encounters. When the pronoun is omitted, context can make a címük mean either “their address” or polite plural “your address.” The verb and situation normally disambiguate it.

Compare the same request addressed to friends (informal) and to clients (formal):

Possession without a verb meaning have

Hungarian has no everyday transitive verb used like English have. It presents the possession as existing and marks the owner on the noun: van autónk literally has the structure “our car exists.” Negation uses nincs/nincsen in the singular and nincsenek with an overtly plural possessed noun.

Notice egy kérdésetek: the owners are plural, but the possessed item is one question. In ismerőseik, the internal -i- marks multiple acquaintances and the final -k identifies third-person plural owners. The possessed-plural forms page separates these layers systematically.

A short dialogue

The unexpressed pronouns and possessive endings make this (informal) exchange concise:

Jegyetek addresses several people; a singular form appears after the question because the group may hold one shared ticket or because the item is treated collectively. Barátunk says “our friend,” while útlevelét changes possessor again to that friend. Hungarian endings keep these reference shifts visible even when English relies mostly on separate determiners.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• -unk/-ünk/-nk, -tok/-tek/-tök, and -uk/-ük identify plural possessors on the possessed noun.
• The j in forms such as kertjük and autójuk belongs to a lexical possessive class; harmony alone cannot predict it.
• Use mi, ti, and attributive ő mainly for contrast or clarity; never use ők in az ő házuk.
• An overt plural noun or Önök normally takes default singular agreement: a fiúk könyve, az Önök címe.
• English have usually corresponds to van/nincs plus a possessive-marked noun: Van időnk.