Teacher, Learner, Content · two case pairings of one lemma · Hungarian cloth · working claim, revisable
Voice[Teacher] + low Appl(Learner) + complement of the root (Content)
tanít · frame (a) · LearnerACC (-t) · ContentSUBL (-ra/-re) or an infinitive
tanít · frame (b) · ContentACC (-t) · LearnerDAT (-nak/-nek)
oktat · LearnerACC · ContentSUBL · ÉrtSz hivatalos
megtanít · the meg- preverb form · gloss only · one printed sublative
tanul · LearnerNOM · ContentACC or an infinitive · person-source -tól/-től
A teaching, on tanít, has a Teacher, a Learner, and a Content. They are not three equal sisters of one flat verb. Voice adds the Teacher. Low Appl introduces the Learner. The root’s complement is the Content. The same lemma prints two ways of casing those two complements. A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára (ÉrtSz, sense 1) writes frame (a) as Vkit tanít (vmire), and the infinitives írni, olvasni, korcsolyázni, úszni tanít vkit. Sense 1a writes frame (b) and equates the two: Vmit tanít (vkinek): vmire tanít (vkit). The filled lines of 1a are Orosz nyelvet, történelmet tanít and Irodalmat tanít az első osztály növendékeinek.
What is different from the English gloss. English teach X to Y and teach Y X are two bare objects, or a bare object and to. Neither gloss chooses a Hungarian case. English Wiktionary’s usage note calls frame (b) the most common structure: the field of teaching in the accusative, the recipients in the dative -nak/-nek. The alternative it prints is frame (a): the field in -ra/-re when the recipients are accusative. Both of its glosses of Angolt tanítok a gyerekeknek are the English pair, “I teach the children English” and “I teach English to the children.” One gloss of Angolra tanítom a gyerekeket is again “I teach the children English.” The other is “I teach the children about English.” ÉrtSz equates the frames. Wiktionary ranks (b) as most common and offers “about” for the sublative. The two citations do not lock a meaning split between the cases.
Where the siblings diverge. Frame (b), accusative Content and dative Learner, is the cloth of Spanish enseñar, of German beibringen, and of Russian преподавать. Frame (a) keeps an accusative Learner, as the active norm of lehren does, and as учить / научить does. The Content of frame (a) is sublative. That is a second accusative on lehren, and a dative on учить. Hungarian prints both pairings on one lemma. German and Russian print them on different lemmas, and neither of those lemmas prints the sublative.
The infinitive, and the Learner alone. ÉrtSz puts the infinitives in the same government as the accusative person: írni, olvasni, korcsolyázni, úszni tanít vkit. József Attila, as ÉrtSz prints the line, has the accusative of the people and no Content: Én egész népemet fogom … taní- / tani! Szabó Lőrinc’s line has neither: Ő tanított harmadfél éven át.
oktat. ÉrtSz sense 1 is transitive and marked hivatalos: Vkit vmire oktat: tanítja vmire. Latinra, mennyiségtanra oktatja a tanulókat. The Learner is accusative. The subject is sublative. English Wiktionary glosses the verb “to educate, to instruct, to teach” and lists tanít among the synonyms. That page prints no case frame. Czuczor and Fogarasi state the limit on the accusative: Csak személyt lehet oktatni; s nem mondjuk, hogy valamely tudományt, mesterséget oktat, hanem tudományra, mesterségre oktat valakit, (vagy tudományt, mesterséget tanít). The accusative Content that tanít prints in frame (b) is the frame this sentence withholds from oktat. ÉrtSz sense 2 is the rebuke, Te csak ne oktass engem!, and it is off the school frame.
megtanít. ÉrtSz lists it in the preverb row, with no gloss of its own: Igekötős igék: betanít; eltanít; félretanít; kitanít; letanít; megtanít; összetanít; rátanít; végigtanít. Hungarian Wiktionary glosses megtanít as Ismeretet magyarázva átad and gives the English word “teach.” The Jókai line on that page is a bor minden nyelvre megtanít (1851): the Content is sublative nyelvre, and the clause has no accusative Learner. A full case frame for the preverb form is unprinted in the articles opened. The row above is the name of the form and the gloss.
tanul. The Learner is the nominative subject. ÉrtSz sense 1 is Tanul vmit and tanul vkitől vmit, with the infinitives írni, olvasni among the companions of vmit. The Content is accusative, or an infinitive. The person one learns from is ablative -tól/-től. Petőfi, as ÉrtSz prints sense 1c: Haza és szabadság, ez a két szó, melyet Először tanuljon dajkától a gyermek. dajkától is that ablative. English Wiktionary sense 1 is “to study, to learn,” and the person-source it names is -tól/-től. It lists tanít as a coordinate term. The ablative is the source. It is not the dative Learner of frame (b), and it is not the accusative Learner of frame (a).