van

Forms

van (present vagyok, vagy, van, vagyunk, vagytok, vannak; past volt; future lesz; conditional volna or lenne; subjunctive legyen or folk légyen; infinitive lenni)^[2] The older third person singular vagyon survives in regional and archaic use, and the third person plural vagynak beside vannak is dialectal or obsolete.^[2] The infinitive of the verb's own stem appears only in the phrase vanni van “there is, indeed”.^[2][3] Old Hungarian had vala (past), vadnak (third person plural) and vagyon; old spellings include uogmuc “we are” (c. 1195), wagun and uolna (Königsberg Fragment) and vattoc “you are” (Vienna Codex).^[4][5] Dialect forms include vót, ólt, vaon and von, and a second person singular vagyó.^[4][3][6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Uralic *wole- (“to be, to become”), one of the words Hungarian inherited from the Finno-Ugric period.^{[4][5][7][8][9][1]} Its cognates are Mansi āl-, Khanty wǎl- (“to live, to be”), Komi-Zyrian ve̮l-, Udmurt vi̮l-, Western Mari ə̆la-, Erzya uľe-, Moksha uľe- and Finnish olla.^[5][9][4] In Mansi the initial /w/ was lost before the original /o/.^[4][8]

The oldest Hungarian stem contained an /l/, kept in vala, ⟨volt⟩, ⟨volna⟩ and való; the /a/ ~ /o/ alternation of these forms is the same as in halott beside holt.^[4][5] In ⟨vagyok⟩, ⟨vagy⟩ and ⟨vagyunk⟩ the /l/ of the stem became /ɟ/ by palatalisation and affrication, as in hogy and így.^[4][5][7] The MSzFE explains the rounded vowel of ⟨volt⟩ and ⟨volna⟩ by the following /l/ and dental, and the dialect forms without /l/ (⟨vót⟩, ⟨vóna⟩) by the vocalisation of the /l/.^[8]

The old third person singular vagyon was at first a noun, formed from the bare stem with the deverbal suffix -n, and meant “what is, what exists”; it took on a verbal function only when ⟨vagy⟩ became fixed as the second person singular.^[4][5][7] The present ⟨van⟩ is a late back-formation from the third person plural ⟨vannak⟩, which arose by assimilation from vagynak ~ vadnak.^{[4][5][7][10]} TESz rejects the view that the ⟨gy⟩ of the stem is a frequentative or present-tense suffix, and ÚESz the derivation from a pronominal stem.^[4][5]

The verb is suppletive: its future, subjunctive and infinitive (⟨lesz⟩, ⟨legyen⟩, ⟨lenni⟩) belong to lesz, which goes back to the Finno-Ugric period, to Proto-Uralic *le- (“to be, to become, to live”), with a suffix -sz that was first frequentative, then a present-tense marker, and finally part of the stem.^[5][7][1] ÚESz compares a Turkic and a Mongolian verb ⟨bol-⟩ “to be”;^[5][4] TESz holds that the comparison with Altaic words needs further study and that a Uralic etymology is mistaken.^[5][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A charter of 1138, known from a copy of 1329, has the personal names Mawag and Mauog; their second part may be a form of the verb, “who is”, but the reading is uncertain.^[4][5] The first sure record is in the Funeral Sermon and Prayer of about 1195: yſa pur eſ chomuv uogmuc “behold, we are dust and ashes”, where the verb is the copula, and vola in a compound past tense.^[4][5][8]

Semantic evolution

TESz and ÚESz give four main uses: “to exist, to be somewhere”, recorded with certainty from the Königsberg Fragment; the copula, and the auxiliary in compound tenses with vala, volt and volna, both from the Funeral Sermon; and valakinek van “someone has”, the Hungarian way of expressing possession, from the Jókai Codex (copied about 1448).^[4][5] The derivative volta “being, presence” appears in the same codex.^[5]

The noun vagyon “what exists” shifted to “material goods, property” by 1692, and later also meant “mass” and “intellectual gift”.^[11][5] In the same way the third person van itself became a noun: “an existing thing” in 1835, “a being” in 1855, and “wealth, property” in 1886; ÚESz compares Chuvash pur and Ottoman Turkish var, both “there is” and “wealth”.^[5] The noun van “property” is folk usage and is recorded by the dialect dictionaries.^[2][12]

Dialects use the verb also for “to cost” (sok pénzembe van “it costs me a lot”) and “to happen” (van úgy “it happens that”).^[3][13][6]

Timeline

• 1138 – Mawag, Mauog, personal names in a charter known from a copy of 1329, perhaps containing the verb.^[4][5]
• c. 1195 – uogmuc “we are” and vola in the Funeral Sermon and Prayer.^[4][5]
• 13th–14th century – wala, uolna, uog and wagun in the Königsberg Fragment, dated about 1350 by TESz and to the early 13th century by ÚESz.^[4][5]
• c. 1448 – vadnak, vagyon and the possessive construction valakinek van in the Jókai Codex (copy of a text written after 1372).^[4][5]
• c. 1456 – vannak and voth in the Sermones Dominicales.^[4][5]
• 1604 – van in Szenczi Molnár's dictionary.^[4][5]
• 1692 – the noun vagyon “property, wealth”.^[11][5]
• 1835 – the noun van “an existing thing”.^[5]
• 1886 – the noun van “wealth, property”.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To exist, to be among the things that are; of a living being, to be alive: Van Isten?^[2][1]
2. To be somewhere, to stay or be present; to live or work somewhere: Anya a konyhában van.^[2]
3. Of a time or a period, to be current, to last: Nyár van.^[2]
4. To happen, to take place: Mi van veled?^[2]
5. With an adverb, to be in a state of health or in some circumstances: Jól vagyok.^[2]
6. Third person, with a possessive subject: to have: Van egy kutyám.^[2][1]
7. To amount to at least so much: Van az húsz kiló is.^[2]
8. Unstressed, as the copula of a nominal predicate outside the present third person: Beteg voltam.^[2][1]
9. As an auxiliary, with the adverbial participle in -va, -ve, expressing a state: Az ajtó zárva van.^[1]

Noun

1. (dialectal, folk) property, wealth; the same as vagyon.^[2][12][5]

Word family

• vagyogat
• vagyon
• vagyonos
• való

Related words

• lesz
• Finnish olla

Usage notes

In the present indicative third person the copula is left out (A ház nagy.), and in that person the verb is not negated with nem or sem.^[2] The old form vagyon still occurs in archaic and regional speech.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Bárczi, Géza; Országh, László (eds.) (1959–1962), A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára, 7 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó; online at ertelmezo.oszk.hu
3. ^ a b c Bálint, Sándor (1957), Szegedi szótár, 2 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 2, 642
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1967–1976), A magyar nyelv történeti-etimológiai szótára, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 3, 1084
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Gerstner, Károly (ed.) (2006–), Új magyar etimológiai szótár, Budapest: Nyelvtudományi Kutatóközpont; online at uesz.nytud.hu
6. ^ a b Kiss, Géza (1952), Ormánysági szótár, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 580
7. ^ a b c d e Zaicz, Gábor (ed.) (2006), Etimológiai szótár: magyar szavak és toldalékok eredete, Budapest: Tinta Könyvkiadó
8. ^ a b c d Lakó, György (ed.) (1967–1978), A magyar szókészlet finnugor elemei, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 3, 669
9. ^ a b Rédei, Károly (ed.) (1986–1991), Uralisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó / Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz; online as Uralonet, uralonet.nytud.hu
10. ^ Bárczi, Géza (1941), Magyar szófejtő szótár, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Egyetemi Nyomda, p. 178
11. ^ a b Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1967–1976), A magyar nyelv történeti-etimológiai szótára, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 3, 1068
12. ^ a b B. Lőrinczy, Éva (ed.) (1979–2010), Új magyar tájszótár, 5 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 5, 631
13. ^ Csűry, Bálint (1935–1936), Szamosháti szótár, 2 vols., Budapest: Magyar Nyelvtudományi Társaság, p. 2, 439