te

Forms

te^[1] The accusative is téged, in popular and familiar speech also tégedet; the other cases are expressed by adverbs with personal endings (neked, benned, általad).^[2][3] Old spellings include ty in the Jókai Codex, thew (about 1467) and teh (1528).^[4][5] In Szeged and the neighbouring dialects te is “you too” is contracted to tés.^[6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Uralic *tinä (“you (singular)”),^[1] one of the words Hungarian inherited from the Uralic period.^[7][5][8][9] Its cognates are found across the family: Komi-Zyrian te, Udmurt ton, Western Mari təń, Erzya ton, Moksha ton, Finnish sinä and Northern Sami dǭn, and, among the Samoyedic languages, Selkup tat.^[5][4] In Finnish and Estonian the initial /t/ became /s/ before /i/.^[4][9]

The vowels of the cognates cannot be traced back to a single form: Hungarian, Komi, Udmurt, Mari and Finnish point to a front vowel, Mordvin, Sami and Samoyedic to a back one.^[9][4] TESz, MSzFE and ÚESz therefore suppose that the Uralic singular pronouns had two variants, a front-vowelled one for “you here” and Proto-Uralic *to for “you there”, in the way that the Uralic demonstratives distinguished “this” and “that” (compare Finnish tämä and tuo).^[9][5][8] In the end it is the same word as the plural pronoun ti.^[7][5][8]

The modern vowel is explained in two ways.^[4][5] Either the original /i/ was kept, because the pronoun is a stressed word of one syllable (as in ki and mi), and later opened to /e/; or a pronoun-forming suffix with /ŋ/ was added to the stem, and the diphthong that resulted was simplified, shortened and opened.^[7][5][8] The ⟨g⟩ of téged goes back to that Ugric suffix (compare engem), and its final ⟨d⟩ is the possessive ending of the second person singular.^[7][9][5] The /n/ of the old forms tenmagad and tennen, which is also seen in several cognates, is a Uralic pronoun-forming suffix; the latter repeats it.^[7][9][5] TESz rejects the view that this /n/ is a Finno-Ugric genitive ending.^[4]

Since the 19th century the pronoun has been compared with Indo-European and Altaic pronouns of the second person.^[9] ÚESz and Zaicz mention Yukaghir, Mongolian and Latin tu as possible relations, and TESz leaves these links for further study.^[5][8][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

ÚESz dates the first record to the early 13th century, in the Königsberg Fragment, where the word appears both as the pronoun “you” and as a possessive (“your”), and where the accusative tegud (modern téged) is also found.^[5] TESz, which dated the fragment to about 1350, gave as the first record the Old Hungarian Lament of Mary of about 1300: the werud hullothya en iunhum olelothya, “the shedding of your blood is the killing of my heart”, with te before a possessed noun.^[4][9]

Semantic evolution

The two uses, the pronoun proper and the possessive placed before a noun with a possessive ending, are both found from the beginning.^[4][5] The emphatic forms ten magad (Jókai Codex) and tennen (Vienna Codex) meant “you yourself” and later also “yours”;^[5][2] tenmagad survives as a rare literary form beside magad.^[5][2]

In the Transylvanian court records of the 16th–17th centuries te is common in address, usually followed by a noun or an adjective that names or describes the person spoken to.^[10] The modern dictionary describes te as the pronoun of familiar speech: between intimates, to children, within close communities, from men to girls and younger women in the villages, and in prayer.^[2] In some dialects te is also used before a plural noun in addressing several people, where the standard language has ti.^[2][11]

The verb tegez “to address someone as te” was formed in the language reform from a stem abstracted from téged, and is recorded from 1795; earlier attempts such as tégetni (1767), tegetni (1775) and tezni (1799) did not last.^[4][5]

Timeline

• early 13th century – te and tegud in the Königsberg Fragment.^[5]
• c. 1300 – the werud “your blood” in the Old Hungarian Lament of Mary.^[4]
• after 1372 (copy of about 1448) – ty and ten magadot “yourself” in the Jókai Codex.^[5]
• after 1416 (copy of about 1450) – tėnėn (tennen) “you yourself” in the Vienna Codex.^[5][4]
• 1767 – tégetni “to address as te” in Pápai Páriz's dictionary.^[4]
• 1795 – tegezni, the verb that lasted.^[4][5]
• 1844 – tegeződés “addressing one another as te”; the verb tegeződik follows in 1879.^[5][4]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. you: the second person singular, the person spoken to in familiar address: Te mit gondolsz erről?^[2][1]
2. In address, calling someone's attention, often followed by a name or a word that describes the person: Te, nézd csak!^[2][10]
3. Before a noun with a second person possessive ending, stressing the possessor: your: a te könyved.^[2][10][4]
4. (dialectal) In addressing several people, before a plural noun or a noun with a plural possessive ending, as ti.^[2][11]

Word family

• téged
• tegez
• tegeződik
• tennen

Related words

• ti
• Finnish sinä

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Bárczi, Géza; Országh, László (eds.) (1959–1962), A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára, 7 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó; online at ertelmezo.oszk.hu
3. ^ Czuczor, Gergely; Fogarasi, János (1862–1874), A magyar nyelv szótára, 6 vols., Pest: Emich Gusztáv / Athenaeum
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1967–1976), A magyar nyelv történeti-etimológiai szótára, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 3, 869
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Gerstner, Károly (ed.) (2006–), Új magyar etimológiai szótár, Budapest: Nyelvtudományi Kutatóközpont; online at uesz.nytud.hu
6. ^ Bálint, Sándor (1957), Szegedi szótár, 2 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 2, 556
7. ^ a b c d e Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1967–1976), A magyar nyelv történeti-etimológiai szótára, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó
8. ^ a b c d e Zaicz, Gábor (ed.) (2006), Etimológiai szótár: magyar szavak és toldalékok eredete, Budapest: Tinta Könyvkiadó
9. ^ a b c d e f g h Lakó, György (ed.) (1967–1978), A magyar szókészlet finnugor elemei, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 3, 621
10. ^ a b c Szabó T., Attila (ed.) (1975–2014), Erdélyi magyar szótörténeti tár, 14 vols., Bukarest: Kriterion / Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó / Kolozsvár: Erdélyi Múzeum-Egyesület
11. ^ a b B. Lőrinczy, Éva (ed.) (1979–2010), Új magyar tájszótár, 5 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 5, 319