Is the standard word order in Hungarian SVO (Subject Verb Object) like in English, or does it also have weird exceptions?

Example:

The boy (subject) chased (verb) the ball (object).

Köszönjük!

Question

Is the standard word order in Hungarian SVO (Subject Verb Object) like in English, or does it also have weird exceptions?

Example:

The boy (subject) chased (verb) the ball (object).

Köszönjük!

Rev01Yeti · Answer

Oh boy, word order. Books could be written about the supposedly free word order in Hungarian. Actually this is one key area where learners struggle, and definitely it's a thing that foreigners rarely master on a native level.

The key thing here is that word order is lax, but not free, and it depends on context and intention. There is a term in linguistics, "topic-prominent language", for example Japanese and Hungarian are such languages. This means sentences are not structured around subjects and objects, but around topics (things of importance, be them nouns/pronouns/verbs/adjectives) and comments about them (new information relayed which isn't known already or which is emphasized).

Now to be technical, the default, neutral word order does happen to be SVO in Hungarian, as in English. But the order can change according to what needs to get into the so-called "focus" position. In addition, things like intonation and stress also contributes to determine if this focus slot is important or not.

I'm not a linguist and I'm really not qualified to teach how Hungarian works, so bear with me, but as far as my technical knowledge goes, in a sentence, the focus position is the slot in front of the main verb. The thing you want to emphasize goes there, everything else can go around this core.

Luckily we will understand any word order however unnatural!

Rev01Yeti · Answer

I'll try to come up with examples:

Capitalized words indicate stressed words.

"Péter vett egy autót tegnap." – "Péter bought a car yesterday." (SVO, default, neutral sentence)
"Péter tegnap vett egy autót." – "Péter bought a car YESTERDAY." (SVO)
"Péter egy autót vett tegnap." – "Péter bought A CAR yesterday." (SOV)
"Péter vett tegnap egy autót. – "Péter BOUGHT a car yesterday." (SVO, the verb is the second unit, so it gets the emphasis)
"PÉTER vett egy autót tegnap." – "PÉTER bought a car yesterday." (SVO, stress emphasizes the otherwise neutral focus)

These are less common, but still natural word orders:

"Egy autót vett Péter tegnap." – "Péter bought A CAR yesterday." (OVS)
In other words: "It was a car that Péter bought yesterday."
"Tegnap Péter vett egy autót." – "PÉTER bought a car yesterday." (SVO, words in front make it act as a non-neutral SVO sentence, focus gets important)
In other words: "It was Péter who bought a car yesterday."

But as I said, the emphasis can change according to stress and intonation, so what is the "comment" of a sentence is not entirely decided by the word order.

Rev01Yeti · Answer

@markyhennon Verbs are needed, except for the verbs equivalent to English "be". Only pronouns can be routinly dropped, not verbs.

Rev01Yeti · Answer

@BaziJoe The adjective+noun thing is about how noun phrases work, not how word order works. SVO has nothing to do with where adjectives go. (SVO: subject, verb, object, there are no mention of adjectives.)

Rev01Yeti · Answer

@haleyve I really need to look up this again, our linguists tried to come up general rules about how word ordering works.

For now the key points:
a) Simpler, neutral sentences are SVO.
b) Word order is flexible.
c) But word order depends on what is the "comment" of the sentence.
d) Stress and intonation may override all the above when it comes to what is the "comment".
e) "Comment" generally goes before the verb.
f) This doesn't mean that something before a verb is automatically important.

Rev01Yeti · Answer

http://www2.ku.edu/~magyar/courses/103/unit1/introducing.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_grammar#Syntax

Maybe these descriptions seem clearer, I recommend reading them. :3

lila7540 · Answer

Hi! The thing is Hungarian does not have a standard word order. It always depends on the topic and situation. For a neutral sentence like "the boy chased the ball"
the word order can be:
A fiú kergette a labdát (SVO)
A fiú a labdát kergette (SOV).

markyhennon · Answer

There is no standard in Hungarian language for SVO. The order is determined what do you want to say. 
Eg. 
Kék az ég. -Sky is blue. Here important thing is what colour of sky.
Az ég kék. - The question is here what is blue.
Az ég a kék. - This is an explanatory sentence.

Verbs and personal pronoun  don't need at all the time because prefixes and suffixes of nouns show you what's happening and who is making/doing things.

markyhennon · Answer

We can say in generally: important (strongest) things first, everything else comes after.

BaziJoe · Answer

The adjective usually comes before the noun

A kék labdát a fiú kergette. - It was the boy who chased the blue ball. ( not the girl chased the ball)

A fiú a kék labdát keegette. - The boy chased the blue ball.

A fiú a kék labdát kergette. - The boy chased the blue ball.(not the green ball beong chased)

esztyx · Answer

In general, it can be said that the word order in Hungarian is quite flexible. The sentence that you provided is a great example, because in Hungarian, it could have any possible word order and it would still make sense. The "normal" word order would be SVO, just like in English, but if I wanted to emphasize that he chased a ball, and not a dog, for example, then I could also say "OVS". But the word order can be fixed (and different from English) as well. There are many cases, but the only one that I can think of is sentences with the verb "to be". If you say something like "I am X", X being your name, or an adjective for example, the Hungarian equivalent will generally be "X vagyok".

Is the standard word order in Hungarian SVO (Subject Verb Object) like in English, or does it also have weird exceptions?

Example:

The boy (subject) chased (verb) the ball (object).

Köszönjük!

Hi! The thing is Hungarian does not have a standard word order. It always depends on the topic and situation. For a neutral sentence like "the boy chased the ball"
the word order can be:
A fiú kergette a labdát (SVO)
A fiú a labdát kergette (SOV).

We can say in generally: important (strongest) things first, everything else comes after.

@markyhennon Verbs are needed, except for the verbs equivalent to English "be". Only pronouns can be routinly dropped, not verbs.

@BaziJoe The adjective+noun thing is about how noun phrases work, not how word order works. SVO has nothing to do with where adjectives go. (SVO: subject, verb, object, there are no mention of adjectives.)

http://www2.ku.edu/~magyar/courses/103/unit1/in...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_grammar#...

Maybe these descriptions seem clearer, I recommend reading them. :3

Ask native speakers questions for free

Is the standard word order in Hungarian SVO (Subject Verb Object) like in English, or does it also have weird exceptions? Example:The boy (subject) chased (verb) the ball (object).Köszönjük! See a translation

Hi! The thing is Hungarian does not have a standard word order. It always depends on the topic and situation. For a neutral sentence like "the boy chased the ball"the word order can be:A fiú kergette a labdát (SVO)A fiú a labdát kergette (SOV).

We can say in generally: important (strongest) things first, everything else comes after.

@markyhennon Verbs are needed, except for the verbs equivalent to English "be". Only pronouns can be routinly dropped, not verbs.

@BaziJoe The adjective+noun thing is about how noun phrases work, not how word order works. SVO has nothing to do with where adjectives go. (SVO: subject, verb, object, there are no mention of adjectives.)

http://www2.ku.edu/~magyar/courses/103/unit1/in...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_grammar#...Maybe these descriptions seem clearer, I recommend reading them. :3

Ask native speakers questions for free

Is the standard word order in Hungarian SVO (Subject Verb Object) like in English, or does it also have weird exceptions?

Example:

The boy (subject) chased (verb) the ball (object).

Köszönjük!

Hi! The thing is Hungarian does not have a standard word order. It always depends on the topic and situation. For a neutral sentence like "the boy chased the ball"
the word order can be:
A fiú kergette a labdát (SVO)
A fiú a labdát kergette (SOV).

http://www2.ku.edu/~magyar/courses/103/unit1/in...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_grammar#...

Maybe these descriptions seem clearer, I recommend reading them. :3