On 28 Apr 2004 Rob Haden <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Where did this "original" past marker derive from?

  From the Proto-Finno-Ugrian (PFU). It had the form of diphtongue
*-ai/äi/ei, where a/ä/e was the ending vowel of the verbal stem,
and *-i was a PFU marker that survived as a past tense marker in
many FU languages, cf. Finnish puhu.n 'I speak' vs. puhu.i.n 'I
spoke'.
  In the Old Hungarian nearly every closing diphtongues became a
simple long vowel, in this case -ai/äi/ei > -á/é. There was a later
process that shortened the long á's and é's in word-final positions
(see present day alternations as singular "fa" 'tree' vs. plural
"fák" 'trees'). The definite paradigm began to develop just in the
time of this shortening process, thus the older long formant was
allocated as a definite suffix and the newer shorter variant as an
indefinite one.
  Notes: The PFU *-i (that is sometimes referred as a glide *-j) is
supposed to be a derivative suffix to form perfect verbs.
Originally PFU had no tenses but perfect - imperfect contrast. The
past tense began to develop only at the time of the disgregation of
PFU. This is why another common FU past marker *-s' /s"/ is
actually a present marker in Hungarian in words like tesz, eszik,
látszik etc.
  PFU knew the definite-indefinite contrast only in case of 3rd
person subjects. The extension of this system to another persons
(or its complete disappearance) was a language-specific post-PFU
process.
  I will call the "original" past here as _preterite_, while the
"present-day" past as _past_.

> What does the "vala" particle mean?

  It's simply the 3rd person of the preterite of the copula. But in
the composite past constructions it behaved like a particle because
it was invariable: the person was marked by adding possessive
personal suffixes to the participle, e.g. láttam vala 'I had seen',
láttad vala 'thou had seen' etc.
  A similar development had the present-day particle "volna" of the
past conditional: láttam volna 'I would have seen', láttad volna
'thou would have seen'. It's the same as the 3rd person of present
conditional of the copula.
  Notes: This participle with personal possessive suffix (without
copula) became later the "present-day" past. This is why there's
still no separate suffix for the 1st person singular past in
indefinite and definite paradigm. (In these forms the separation of
the two paradigms was [is?] a quite modern process.)
  Nearly every participle and infinitive can be (or could be in the
past) conjugated in Hungarian by adding possessive personal
suffixes. However, in the present-day language these forms are
archaic _except_ the ones formed from the infinitive.

> Where did the -va suffix come from?

  This developed from a PFU *-ma/mä suffix that formed "verbal
nominal" (verbal nominal is a common term form participles,
infinitives, gerunds and supines). This *-ma/mä continues also in
Hungarian deverbal noun-forming compound suffixes -mány/mány ~
-vény/vény (meaning the patient of an action: olvasmány '(piece of)
reading; e.t. somthing that is read'), as well as in Estonian "ma"-
type infinitive and in Finnish 3rd person plural marker -vat/vät
(and etymologically also in 3rd person singular marker *-va/vä).
  The intervovalic PFU *-m- could remain unchanged or result in a
bilabial fricative *-B- that laterv disappeared or changed to
labiodental fricative -v-.
  The suffix -va/ve has a half-archaized variant -ván/vén. The
latter comes from -va/ve plus superessive ("on the surface of")
case marker.

> What does "lesz" mean?

  The original (and still existing) meaning of "lesz" is 'he/she/it
becomes'. However, due to the fact that it refers to a future
action, it picked up also the function of the future form of the
copula, cf. there's no significant difference between the
utterances "I become good" and "I will be good".
  Actually the copula (vagy-/vol-/val- < *vol-; van < vagyon) is
the only Hungarian verb that has a special future form, and this
form is borrowed from the present tense of "lesz" 'to become'. And
not just this one, e.g. infinitive "lenni", imperative "legy-",
past conditional "lett volna". In present conditional we have
doublets "lenne" ~ "volna" that have the same sense in the
colloquial language (litterati use "lenne" as future conditional).