The
grammar
In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...
of the
Polish language
Polish (Polish: ''język polski'', , ''polszczyzna'' or simply ''polski'', ) is a West Slavic language of the Lechitic group written in the Latin script. It is spoken primarily in Poland and serves as the native language of the Poles. In a ...
is characterized by a high degree of
inflection
In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and defin ...
, and has relatively free
word order
In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...
, although the dominant arrangement is
subject–verb–object (SVO). There are no
articles
Article often refers to:
* Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness
* Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication
Article may also refer to:
G ...
, and there is frequent
dropping of subject pronouns. Distinctive features include the different treatment of
masculine personal
In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all noun ...
nouns in the plural, and the complex grammar of
numerals and
quantifiers.
Regular morphological alternation
Certain regular or common
alternations apply across the Polish inflectional system, affecting the morphology of nouns, adjectives, verbs, and other parts of speech. Some of these result from the
restricted distribution of the vowels ''i'' and ''y'', and from the
voicing rules for consonants in clusters and at the end of words. Otherwise, the main changes are the following:
*vowel alternations, arising from the
historical development of certain vowels, which cause vowel changes in some words depending on whether the syllable is closed or open, or whether the following consonant is soft or hard;
*consonant changes caused by certain endings (such as the ''-ie'' of the
locative
In grammar, the locative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by". The locative case belongs to the general local cases, together with the ...
case, and the ''-i'' of the masculine personal plural), which historically entailed
palatalization of the preceding consonant, and now produce a number of different changes depending on which consonant is involved.
Nouns
Polish retains the Old
Slavic system of
case
Case or CASE may refer to:
Containers
* Case (goods), a package of related merchandise
* Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component
* Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books
* Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to c ...
s for
noun
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for:
* Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...
s,
pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase.
Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not co ...
s, and
adjective
In linguistics, an adjective (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that generally grammatical modifier, modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.
Tra ...
s. There are seven cases:
nominative
In grammar, the nominative case (abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...
,
genitive
In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can al ...
,
dative
In grammar, the dative case (abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "Maria Jacobo potum dedit", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob a ...
,
accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘the ...
,
instrumental
An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instru ...
,
locative
In grammar, the locative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by". The locative case belongs to the general local cases, together with the ...
, and
vocative
In grammar, the vocative Grammatical case, case (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed, or occasionally for the noun modifiers ...
.
Number
Polish has two
number classes: singular and plural.
It used to also have the
dual
Dual or Duals may refer to:
Paired/two things
* Dual (mathematics), a notion of paired concepts that mirror one another
** Dual (category theory), a formalization of mathematical duality
*** see more cases in :Duality theories
* Dual (grammatical ...
number, but it vanished around the 15th century. It survived only in a few
relicts
A relict is a surviving remnant of a natural phenomenon.
Biology
A relict (or relic) is an organism that at an earlier time was abundant in a large area but now occurs at only one or a few small areas.
Geology and geomorphology
In geology, a r ...
:
* body parts that naturally come in pairs have synchronically irregular plural and other forms
** ''oko'' ("eye") – pl. ''oczy'', genitive plural ''oczu'', instrumental plural regular ''oczami'' or irregular ''oczyma''; but not in the sense of "drop of fat on a liquid", which is declined regularly
** ''ręka'' ("hand, arm") – pl. ''ręce'', locative singular regular ''ręce'' or irregular ''ręku'', instrumental plural regular ''rękami'' or irregular ''rękoma''
** ''ucho'' ("ear") – pl. ''uszy,'' genitive plural ''uszu'', instrumental plural regular ''uszami'' or irregular ''uszyma''; but not in the sense of "a handle (of a jug or a kettle, etc.)", which is declined regularly
* certain proverbs, e.g. ''Mądrej głowie dość dwie słowie'' (lit. "two words are enough for a wise head"), with dual ''dwie słowie'' (modern ''dwa słowa'')
Gender
Note that for true nouns (not for adjectives), there are three cases that always have the same ending in the plural, regardless of gender or declension class: dative plural in ''-om'', instrumental plural in ''-ami'' or ''-mi,'' and locative plural in ''-ach'' ; the only apparent exception being nouns that are in fact inflected as previously ''dual nouns'', ex. ''rękoma'' instrumental plural of ''ręka'' "hand".
Inflection
There are three main
gender
Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...
s (''rodzaje''): masculine (''męski''), feminine (''żeński'') and neuter (''nijaki''). Masculine nouns are further divided into personal (''męskoosobowy''), animate (''męskożywotny''), and inanimate (''męskorzeczowy'') categories. Personal and animate nouns are distinguished from inanimate nouns in the accusative singular; for the latter the accusative is identical to the nominative. In the plural, the masculine personal nouns are distinguished from all others, which collapse into one non-masculine personal gender (''niemęskoosobowy'').
The following tables show this distinction using as examples the nouns ''mężczyzna'' 'man' (masc. personal), ''pies'' 'dog' (masc. animate), ''stół'' 'table' (masc. inanimate), ''kobieta'' 'woman' (feminine), ''okno'' 'window' (neuter). The following table presents examples of how a determiner ''ten/ta/to'' ("this") agrees with nouns of different genders in the nominative and the accusative, both singular and plural. Adjectives inflect similarly to this determiner.
For verbs, the distinction is only important for past forms in the plural, as in the table below:
The numeral ''dwa'' ("two"), on the other hand, behaves differently, merging masculine non-personal with neuter, but not with feminine:
Morphological endings
Gender can usually be inferred from the ending of a noun.
Masculine:
* masculine nouns typically end in a consonant
* some nouns, describing people, end in ''-a'', specifically:
** all nouns ending in ''-sta'', equivalent to English "-ist", e.g. ''artysta'' ("artist")'', kapitalista'' ("capitalist")'', konserwatysta'' ("conservative"), ''socjalista'' ("socialist")
** all nouns ending in ''-nauta'', equivalent to English "-naut", e.g. ''argonauta'' ("
argonaut
The Argonauts (; Ancient Greek: ) were a band of heroes in Greek mythology, who in the years before the Trojan War (around 1300 BC) accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, ''Argo'', ...
"), ''astronauta'' ("astronaut")'', kosmonauta'' ("cosmonaut")
** last names
** first names ''Barnaba, Bonawentura'', also ''Kuba'' (diminutive of ''Jakub'')
** emotionally charged nicknames, e.g. ''beksa'' ("crybaby")'', łamaga, niezdara, oferma'' (all three of which mean "a clumsy person")
** some other nouns, e.g. ''satelita'' ("satellite"), ''wojewoda'' ("voivode"); ''hrabia'' ("count") and ''sędzia'' ("judge") – both partially declined like adjectives
* some personal names end in ''-o'', e.g. ''Horeszko, Kościuszko''; those decline in singular like feminine nouns ending in ''-a''
* some nouns, which were originally adjectives, end in ''-i'' and ''-y''; those decline in singular like adjectives
Feminine:
* feminine nouns typically end in ''-a''
* some nouns end in a
soft or hardened consonant:
** all abstract nouns ending in ''-ść'', e.g. ''miłość'' ("love"), ''nieśmiałość'' ("shyness"), ''zawiść'' ("envy"), etc.
** some concrete nouns ending in ''-ść'': ''kiść'' ("bunch"), ''kość'' ("bone"), ''maść'' ("ointment"), ''ość'' ("fishbone"), ''przepaść'' ("chasm"), ''wieść'' ("news")
**''-b:'' ''głąb'' ("depth")
**''-c:'' ''moc'' ("power"), ''noc'' ("night"), ''pomoc'' ("help"), ''przemoc'' ("violence"), ''równonoc'' ("equinox"), ''Wielkanoc'' ("Easter"), ''wszechmoc'' ("omnipotence")
**''-cz:
Bydgoszcz
Bydgoszcz ( , , ; german: Bromberg) is a city in northern Poland, straddling the meeting of the River Vistula with its left-bank tributary, the Brda. With a city population of 339,053 as of December 2021 and an urban agglomeration with more ...
, ciecz'' ("liquid"), ''dzicz'' ("wilderness"), ''klacz'' ("mare"), ''kokorycz'' ("
corydalis
''Corydalis'' (from Greek ''korydalís'' "crested lark") is a genus of about 470 species of annual and perennial herbaceous plants in the family Papaveraceae, native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere and the high mountains of tropical eastern ...
"), ''rzecz'' ("thing"), ''smycz'' ("leash")
**''-ć'': ''brać'' ("company"), ''chuć'' ("lust"), ''jać'' ("
yat
Yat or jat (Ѣ ѣ; italics: ) is the thirty-second letter of the old Cyrillic alphabet and the Rusyn alphabet.
There is also another version of yat, the iotified yat (majuscule: , minuscule: ), which is a Cyrillic character combining a ...
"), ''mać'' (archaic for "mother"), ''płeć'' ("sex, gender"), ''sieć'' ("net")
**''-dź: czeladź'' (a collective term for servants of one master during the Middle Ages
(pl)"), ''gołoledź'' ("
black ice
Black ice, sometimes called clear ice, is a thin coating of glaze ice on a surface, especially on streets. The ice itself is not black, but visually transparent, allowing the often black road below to be seen through it. The typically low levels ...
"), ''krawędź'' ("edge"), ''łódź'' ("boat"), ''miedź'' ("copper"), ''odpowiedź'' ("answer"), ''powódź'' ("flood"), ''spowiedź'' ("confession"), ''wypowiedź'' ("utterance"), ''zapowiedź'' ("announcement")
**''-j:'' ''kolej'' ("railway")
**''-l:'' ''kąpiel'' ("bath"), ''myśl'' ("thought"), ''sól'' ("salt")
**''-ń: baśń'' ("fable"), ''czerń'' ("the colour black, blackness"), ''czerwień'' ("the colour red, redness"), ''dłoń'' ("palm"), ''goleń'' ("shin"), ''jaźń'' ("self, ego"), ''jesień'' ("autumn"), ''kieszeń'' ("pocket"), ''krtań'' ("larynx"), ''otchłań'' ("abyss"), ''pieczeń'' ("roasted meat"), ''pieśń'' ("song"), ''pleśń'' ("mould"), ''przestrzeń'' ("space"), ''przyjaźń'' ("friendship"), ''przystań'' ("haven"), ''skroń'' ("temple"), ''waśń'' ("feud"), ''woń'' ("odour"), ''zieleń'' ("the colour green, greenness")
**''-p:'' ''
Gołdap
Gołdap ( or variant ''Goldapp''; lt, Geldupė, Geldapė, Galdapė) is a town in northeastern Poland, in the region of Masuria, seat of Gołdap County in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship. It is located on the Gołdapa River, between the Szeskie ...
''
**''-rz'': ''macierz'' ("matrix"), ''twarz'' ("face")
**''-sz'': ''mysz'' ("mouse"), ''wesz'' ("louse")
**''-ś'': ''Białoruś'' ("
Belarus
Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...
"), ''gęś'' ("goose"), ''oś'' ("axis"), ''pierś'' ("breast"), ''Ruś'' ("
Ruthenia
Ruthenia or , uk, Рутенія, translit=Rutenia or uk, Русь, translit=Rus, label=none, pl, Ruś, be, Рутэнія, Русь, russian: Рутения, Русь is an exonym, originally used in Medieval Latin as one of several terms ...
"), ''wieś'' ("village")
**''-ź'': ''gałąź'' ("branch"), ''rzeź'' ("slaughter")
**''-ż'': ''grabież'' ("pillage"), ''młodzież'' ("youth"), ''odzież'' ("clothing"), ''podaż'' ("supply"), ''sprzedaż'' ("sale"), ''straż'' ("guard"), ''uprząż'' ("harness")
**''-w'': ''brew'' ("eyebrow"), ''brukiew'' ("
rutabaga
Rutabaga (; North American English) or swede (British English and some Commonwealth English) is a root vegetable, a form of ''Brassica napus'' (which also includes rapeseed). Other names include Swedish turnip, neep (Scots), and turnip (Scott ...
"), ''marchew'' ("carrot"), ''konew'' ("jug"), ''krew'' ("blood"), ''rukiew'' ("
watercress
Watercress or yellowcress (''Nasturtium officinale'') is a species of aquatic flowering plant in the cabbage family Brassicaceae.
Watercress is a rapidly growing perennial plant native to Europe and Asia. It is one of the oldest known leaf ve ...
"), ''rzodkiew'' ("radish"), ''żagiew'' ("torch")
*words ending in ''-ini'' are feminine, e.g. ''bogini'' ("goddess"); also ''pani'' ("Mrs")
*feminine last names ending in a consonant are invariable
Neuter:
*neuter nouns typically end in ''-o''
*verbal nouns, which are always neuter, end in ''-e'', e.g. ''jedzenie, śpiewanie,'' etc.
*diminutives ending in ''-ę'' are always neuter, e.g. ''źrebię'' ("foal"), ''dziecię'' ("child")
*Latin loanwords ending in ''-um'' : invariable in the singular, declinable in the plural by removing the ''-um'' ending and replacing it by neuter plural endings ; the genitive plural is in ''-ów'' contrary to other neuters that have no ending → ''muzeum'', ''muzea'' (N. pl.), ''muzeów'' (G. pl.)
*loanwords ending in ''-i'' are neuter and invariable, e.g. ''kiwi, Brunei, Burundi''
*acronyms ending in a vowel (in pronunciation), e.g. ''BMW'' ; if an acronym is native, its gender may also be equal to the gender of the noun in the full version of the acronym
Semantic membership
The distinction between personal, animate and inanimate nouns within masculine nouns is largely semantic, although not always.
Personal nouns are comprised by human nouns such as ''mężczyzna'' 'man' or ''sędzia'' 'male judge', personal names of men, as well as the noun ''bóg'' 'male god' and proper names of male gods (e.g. ''Rod'' "
Rod", ''Jowisz'' "
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but ...
").
Animate nouns are largely comprised by animals such as ''pies'' ("dog") or ''pawian'' ("baboon"), many members from other
life domains, as well as a number of objects associated with human activity. On the morphological level however, such nouns are only partially similar to animate nouns, having their accusative identical to their genitive only in the singular.
Some examples :
*names of fruit, e.g. ''ananas'' ("pineapple"), ''banan'' ("banana")
*names of
fungi
A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from ...
, bacteria, viruses, e.g. ''borowik'' ("
cep"), ''grzyb'' ("mushroom"), ''wirus'' ("virus"), ''gronkowiec'' ("
staphylococcus
''Staphylococcus'' is a genus of Gram-positive bacteria in the family Staphylococcaceae from the order Bacillales. Under the microscope, they appear spherical (cocci), and form in grape-like clusters. ''Staphylococcus'' species are facultative ...
")
*names of consumer goods and brands, e.g. ''mercedes'' ("Mercedes car"), ''Nikon'' (as in ''Mam Nikona'' – "I have a Nikon"), ''papieros'' ("cigarette")
*names of currency, e.g. ''dolar'' ("dollar"), ''funt'' ("pound")
*names of dances, e.g. ''polonez'' ("
polonaise
The polonaise (, ; pl, polonez ) is a dance of Polish origin, one of the five Polish national dances in time. Its name is French for "Polish" adjective feminine/"Polish woman"/"girl". The original Polish name of the dance is Chodzony, meani ...
")
*some loanwords related to information technology, e.g. ''blog, komputer'' ("computer")
*nouns related to human or human-like referents, e.g. ''nieboszczyk, trup'' (both of which mean "corpse"), ''robot'' ("robot"), ''wisielec'' ("the body of a hanged person"), ''duch'' ("ghost")
Contrary to fungi and bacteria, most plant names of masculine gender are inanimate, e.g. ''żonkil'' ("
daffodil
''Narcissus'' is a genus of predominantly spring flowering perennial plants of the amaryllis family, Amaryllidaceae. Various common names including daffodil,The word "daffodil" is also applied to related genera such as '' Sternbergia'', ''Is ...
"), ''hiacynt'' ("
hyacinth
Hyacinth or Hyacinthus may refer to:
Nature Plants
* Hyacinth (plant), genus ''Hyacinthus''
** ''Hyacinthus orientalis'', common hyacinth
* Grape hyacinth, ''Muscari'', a genus of perennial bulbous plants native to Eurasia
* Hyacinth bean, ''Labl ...
"), ''dąb'' ("oak"), ''cis'' ("
yew
Yew is a common name given to various species of trees.
It is most prominently given to any of various coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Taxus'':
* European yew or common yew (''Taxus baccata'')
* Pacific yew or western yew (''Taxus br ...
tree"), which are all inanimate. The noun ''goździk'' ("
carnation
''Dianthus caryophyllus'' (), commonly known as the carnation or clove pink, is a species of ''Dianthus''. It is likely native to the Mediterranean region but its exact range is unknown due to extensive cultivation for the last 2,000 years.Med ...
") is an exception as a masculine animate. Not all technological loanwords are animate either, e.g. inanimate ''modem'', ''telefon'' ("telephone, cellphone"), and ''tranzystor'' ("
transistor
upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink).
A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch e ...
"). ''Robot'' can be treated as animate or inanimate.
It is common for personal masculine nouns to change gender to inanimate to create semantic neologisms, for example ''edytor'' ("editor", pl. ''ci edytorzy'') and ''edytor (tekstu)'' ("word processor software", pl. ''te edytory'').
For non-living objects that represent humans (e.g. in games), personal masculine nouns usually change gender to animate; for example, the word ''król'' ("king"), which is masculine-personal when referring to
a monarch (pl. ''ci królowie''), becomes masculine-animate when referring to
the playing card or
the chess piece (pl. ''te króle'').
There are also a few pairs of homographs that completely change their meaning depending on their gender. Examples are:
Homographs that differ only by their gender can also occur in some Polish place names; for example, the town of
Ostrów (Wielkopolski) is masculine, while the town of
Ostrów (Mazowiecka) is feminine.
Declension
Typical declension patterns are as follows:
* ("club"; an inanimate masculine noun) – N/A , G , D , I , L/V . Plural: N/A/V , G , D , I , L .
* ("map"; a feminine noun) – N , G , D/L , A , I , V . Plural: N/A/V , G , D , I , L .
* ("meat'; a neuter noun) – N/A/V , G , D , I , L . Plural: N/A/V , G , D , I , L .
A common deviation from the above patterns is that many masculine nouns have genitive singular in ''-a'' rather than ''-u''. This includes all personal and animate masculines (ending in a consonant). Also masculine animate nouns have accusative singular equal to the genitive singular (in ''-a''). Masculine personal nouns also have accusative plural equal to genitive plural, and often have nominative plural in ''-i''.
Adjectives
Adjectives agree with the noun they modify in terms of gender, number and case. They are declined according to the following pattern (''dumny'' means "proud"):
*masculine singular: N/V , G , D , A (for inanimate nouns)/''dumnego'' (animate), I/L
*feminine singular: N/V , G/D/L , A/I
*neuter singular: N/V/A , G/D/I/L as masculine
*plural: N/V/A (but for masculine personal nouns N/V A ), G/L , D , I
For a table showing the declension of Polish adjectival surnames, ending in ''-ski/-ska'' or ''-cki/-cka'', see
Declension of adjectival surnames.
Most short adjectives have a comparative form in ''-szy'' or ''-iejszy'', and a superlative obtained by prefixing ''naj-'' to the comparative.
For adjectives that do not have these forms, the words ("more") and ("most") are used before the adjective to make comparative and superlative phrases.
Adverbs are formed from adjectives with the ending ''ie'', or in some cases ''-o''. Comparatives of adverbs are formed (where they exist) with the ending ''-iej''. Superlatives have the prefix ''naj-'' as for adjectives.
Pronouns
The
personal pronoun
Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', ''they''). Personal pronouns may also take dif ...
s of Polish (nominative forms) are ''ja'' ("I"), ''ty'' ("you", singular,
familiar
In European folklore of the medieval and early modern periods, familiars (sometimes referred to as familiar spirits) were believed to be supernatural entities that would assist witches and cunning folk in their practice of magic. According to re ...
), ("he", or "it" corresponding to masculine nouns), ("she", or "it" corresponding to feminine nouns), ("it" corresponding to neuter nouns), ("we"), ("you", plural, familiar), ("they", corresponding to a masculine personal group – see
Noun syntax above), ("they" in other cases; group where there are only girls/women).
The
polite second-person pronouns are the same as the nouns ("gentleman, Mr"), ("lady, Mrs") and their plurals . The mixed-sex plural is . All second-person pronouns are often capitalized for politeness, in letters etc.
For the full declension of these pronouns, see
''Pronouns'' in the article on Polish morphology. Subject pronouns can be
dropped if the meaning is clear and they are not emphasized. Sometimes there are alternative forms available for a given personal pronoun in a given case:
*there may be a form beginning with ''n-'', used after prepositions (for example, the accusative of is after a preposition rather than );
*there may be a
clitic
In morphology and syntax, a clitic (, backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a w ...
form, used when unstressed, but not after prepositions (such as as the dative of , an alternative to ).
The
reflexive pronoun
A reflexive pronoun is a pronoun that refers to another noun or pronoun (its antecedent) within the same sentence.
In the English language specifically, a reflexive pronoun will end in ''-self'' or ''-selves'', and refer to a previously n ...
for all persons and numbers is .
The
possessive adjective Possessive determiners (from la, possessivus, translit=; grc, κτητικός / ktētikós - en. ktetic
Lallu) are determiners which express possession. Some traditional grammars of English refer to them as possessive adjectives, though they do ...
s (also used as possessive pronouns) derived from the personal pronouns are , , (m., n.)/''jej'' (f.); , , . There is also a reflexive possessive . The polite second-person pronouns have possessives identical to the genitives of the corresponding nouns, although there is a possessive adjective corresponding to .
The
demonstrative pronoun
Demonstratives (abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic; their meaning depending on a particular frame ...
, also used as a demonstrative adjective, is (feminine , neuter , masculine personal plural , other plural ). The prefix ''tam-'' can be added to emphasize a more distant referent ("that" as opposed to "this").
Interrogative
An interrogative clause is a clause whose form is typically associated with question-like meanings. For instance, the English sentence "Is Hannah sick?" has interrogative syntax which distinguishes it from its declarative counterpart "Hannah is ...
pronouns are ("who") and ("what"); these also provide the pronouns ("someone/something"), ("anyone/anything"), ("no one/nothing").
The usual
relative pronoun
A relative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative clause. It serves the purpose of conjoining modifying information about an antecedent referent.
An example is the word ''which'' in the sentence "This is the house which Jack built." Here the ...
is (declined like an adjective). However, when the antecedent is also a pronoun, the relative pronoun used is or (as in "he who" and "that which"). The word also means "which" as an interrogative pronoun and adjective.
The pronoun and adjective means "all". It is used most commonly in the plural (''wszyscy'' means "everyone"), and in the neuter singular to mean "everything". The pronoun and adjective means "each, every", while means "no, none".
For full information on the declension of the above pronouns, see
''Pronouns'' in the article on Polish morphology.
When the referent of a pronoun is a person of unspecified sex, the masculine form of the pronoun is generally used. When the referent is a thing or idea that does not correspond to any specific noun, it is treated as neuter.
Numbers and quantifiers
Polish has a complex system of
numerals and related
quantifiers, with special rules for their inflection, for the case of the governed noun, and for verb
agreement Agreement may refer to:
Agreements between people and organizations
* Gentlemen's agreement, not enforceable by law
* Trade agreement, between countries
* Consensus, a decision-making process
* Contract, enforceable in a court of law
** Meeting o ...
with the resulting noun phrase.
The basic numerals are 0 , 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 30 , 40 , 50 , 60 , 70 , 80 , 90 , 100 , 200 , 300 , 400 , 500 , 600 , 700 , 800 , 900 .
These numerals are inflected for case, and also to some extent for gender. For details of their inflection, see
''Numbers and quantifiers'' in the article on Polish morphology.
Thousand is , treated as a noun (so 2000 is , etc.). Million is , billion (meaning a thousand million) is , a million million is , a thousand million million is , and so on (''i.e.'', the
long scale
The long and short scales are two of several naming systems for integer powers of ten which use some of the same terms for different magnitudes.
For whole numbers smaller than 1,000,000,000 (109), such as one thousand or one million, the ...
is used).
Compound numbers are constructed similarly as in English (for example, 91,234 is ).
When a numeral modifies a noun, the numeral takes the expected case, but the noun may not; also the gender and number of the resulting
noun phrase
In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
may not correspond to that of the noun. The following rules apply:
*The numeral (1) behaves as an ordinary adjective, and no special rules apply. It can even be used in the plural, for example to mean "some" (and not others), or to mean "one" with
pluralia tantum
A ''plurale tantum'' (Latin for "plural only"; ) is a noun that appears only in the plural form and does not have a singular variant for referring to a single object. In a less strict usage of the term, it can also refer to nouns whose singular fo ...
, e.g. "one door" (''drzwi'' has no singular).
*After the numerals , , (2, 3, 4), and compound numbers ending with them (22, 23, 24, etc. but not 12, 13, or 14, which take ''-naście'' as a suffix and are thus not compound numbers in the first place), the noun is plural and takes the same case as the numeral, and the resulting noun phrase is plural (e.g. , "4 cats stood").
*With other numbers (5, 6, etc., 20, 21, 25, etc.), if the numeral is nominative or accusative, the noun takes the genitive plural form, and the resulting noun phrase is neuter singular (e.g. , "5 cats stood").
*With the masculine personal plural forms of numbers (as given in the
morphology
Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to:
Disciplines
* Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts
* Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...
article section), the rule given above – that if the numeral is nominative or accusative, the noun is genitive plural and the resulting phrase is neuter singular – applies to ''all'' numbers other than 1 (as in , "three men came"), unless the alternative nominative forms , , (for 2, 3, 4) are used (these take nominative nouns and form a masculine plural phrase).
*If the numeral is in the genitive, dative, instrumental or locative, the noun takes the same case as the numeral (except sometimes in the case of numbers that end with the nouns for 1000 and higher quantities, which often take a genitive noun regardless since they are treated as normal nouns).
Polish also has a series of numerals called collective numerals , namely (for 2), (for 3), (for 4), (for 5), and so on. These are used with the following types of nouns:
*Personal and animate neuter nouns (e.g. ("child"), ("kitten"))
*Non-masculine personal
pluralia tantum
A ''plurale tantum'' (Latin for "plural only"; ) is a noun that appears only in the plural form and does not have a singular variant for referring to a single object. In a less strict usage of the term, it can also refer to nouns whose singular fo ...
, i.e. nouns that do not exist in the grammatical singular (such as ("door(s)"), ("birthday(s)"))
*Plural nouns referring to a group containing both sexes (for example, refers to a group of four students of mixed sex)
For the declension of collective numerals by case, see the
morphology
Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to:
Disciplines
* Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts
* Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...
article section. They all follow the rule that when the numeral is nominative or accusative, the noun becomes genitive plural, and the resulting noun phrase is neuter singular. In this case the genitive noun is also used after the instrumental of the numeral.
Certain
quantifiers behave similarly to numerals. These include ("several"), ("a few") and ("much, many"), which behave like numbers above 5 in terms of the noun cases and verb forms taken. There are also indefinite numerals (and similar forms with ''parę-''), meaning "several-teen", several tens and several hundred.
Quantifiers that always take the genitive of nouns include ("much, many"), ("few, little"), ("more"), ("less") (also "most/least"), ("a bit"), ("plenty, a lot").
The words and (meaning "both"), and their derived forms behave like . However the collective forms (in the nominative/vocative), when referring to a married couple or similar, take the nominative form of the noun rather than the genitive, and form a masculine plural noun phrase (''oboje rodzice byli'', "both parents were", cf. ).
For the declension of all the above quantifiers, see the
morphology
Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to:
Disciplines
* Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts
* Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...
article section.
Verbs
Polish
verb
A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descri ...
s have the grammatical category of
aspect
Aspect or Aspects may refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Aspect magazine'', a biannual DVD magazine showcasing new media art
* Aspect Co., a Japanese video game company
* Aspects (band), a hip hop group from Bristol, England
* ''Aspects'' (Benny Carter ...
. Each verb is either ''imperfective'', meaning that it denotes continuous or habitual events, or ''perfective'', meaning that it denotes single completed events (in particular, perfective verbs have no present tense). Verbs often occur in imperfective and perfective pairs – for example, and both mean "to eat", but the first has imperfective aspect, the second perfective.
Imperfective verbs have three
tenses
In grammar, tense is a category that expresses time reference. Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their conjugation patterns.
The main tenses found in many languages include the past, present, ...
:
present
The present (or here'' and ''now) is the time that is associated with the events perception, perceived directly and in the first time, not as a recollection (perceived more than once) or a speculation (predicted, hypothesis, uncertain). It is ...
,
past
The past is the set of all events that occurred before a given point in time. The past is contrasted with and defined by the present and the future. The concept of the past is derived from the linear fashion in which human observers experience t ...
and
future
The future is the time after the past and present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the apparent nature of reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that currently ...
, the last being a compound tense (except in the case of "to be"). Perfective verbs have a past tense and a simple future tense, the latter formed on the same pattern as the present tense of imperfective verbs. Both types also have
imperative and
conditional forms. The dictionary form of a verb is the
infinitive
Infinitive (abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is deri ...
, which usually ends with ''-ć'' (occasionally with ''-c''). The present-day past tense derives from the old
Slavic "perfect" tense; several other old tenses (the
aorist
Aorist (; abbreviated ) verb forms usually express perfective aspect and refer to past events, similar to a preterite. Ancient Greek grammar had the aorist form, and the grammars of other Indo-European languages and languages influenced by the I ...
,
imperfect
The imperfect (abbreviated ) is a verb form that combines past tense (reference to a past time) and imperfective aspect (reference to a continuing or repeated event or state). It can have meanings similar to the English "was walking" or "used to w ...
) have been dropped.
The present tense of imperfective verbs (and future tense of perfective verbs) has six forms, for the three
persons
A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, ...
and two
numbers
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...
. For example, the present tense of is , , ; , , (meaning "(I) eat" etc. – subject pronouns may be dropped), while the future tense of the corresponding perfective verb is , etc. (meaning "(I) shall eat" etc.)
The verb has the irregular present tense . It also has a simple future tense (see below).
The past tense agrees with the subject in gender as well as person and number. The basic past stem is in ''-ł''; to this are added endings for gender and number, and then personal endings are further added for the first and second person forms. Thus, on the example of , the past tense forms are ("I was", masc/fem.), , ; ("we were" all gender mixes (except:)/a group of all fem.), , .
The
conditional is formed from the past tense, , and the personal ending (if any). For example: ("I would be", masc/fem.), , ; , , .
The personal past tense suffixes, which are reduced forms of the present tense of , are
clitic
In morphology and syntax, a clitic (, backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a w ...
s and can be detached from the verb to attach to another accented word earlier in the sentence, such as a question word (as in as an alternative to "whom did you see"), or (mostly in informal speech) an emphatic particle (''co żeście zrobili?'' "what did you do"). The same applies to the conditional endings (''kiedy byście przyszli'' as an alternative to "when would you come").
If introduces the clause, either alone or forming one of the conjunctions , , , , , it forms the
subjunctive mood
The subjunctive (also known as conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood, a feature of the utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude towards it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality ...
[Migdalski K. ''The Syntax of Compound Tenses in Slavic'', Utrecht 2006]
and is not to be confused with the conditional clitic .
[Anastasia Smirnova, Vedrana Mihaliček, Lauren Ressue, ''Formal Studies in Slavic Linguistics'', Cambridge Scholar Publishing, Newcastle upon Type, Wielka Brytania, 2010: Barbara Tomaszewicz, Subjunctive Mood in Polish and the Clause Typing Hypothesis] For example, "He wants me to sing" might be , or . Such clauses may express "in order that", or be used with verbs meaning "want", "expect", etc.
The future tense of ("be") follows the pattern of a typical present tense: .
The future tense of other imperfective verbs is formed using the future of together with the infinitive, or the past form (inflected for gender and number, but without any personal suffixes), of the verb in question. For example, the future of ("do, make") has such forms as , . The choice between infinitive and past form is usually a free one, but with modals governing another infinitive, the past form is used: (not ) "he will have to leave".
The second personal singular
imperative is formed from the present tense by dropping the ending (e.g. : 2/3S present , imperative ), sometimes adding ''-ij'' or ''-aj''. Add ''-my'' and ''-cie'' for the 1P and 2P forms. To make third-person imperative sentences (including with the polite second-person pronouns etc.) the particle is used at the start of the sentence (or at least before the verb), with the verb in the future tense (if or perfective) or present tense (otherwise). There is a tendency to prefer imperfective verbs in imperative sentences for politeness; negative imperatives quite rarely use perfectives.
Other forms of the verb are:
*present
adverbial participle
In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
(imperfective verbs only), as (meaning "(when) singing", "by singing", etc.)
*present
adjectival participle
In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
(imperfective verbs only), formed from the present adverbial participle by adding adjectival endings, as etc., meaning "singing" (as an
attributive adjective
In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.
Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the mai ...
), although such participles can be used to form extended adjectival phrases, which (usually unlike in English) can precede the noun.
*
passive participle
In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
(all transitive verbs), in ''-ny'' or ''-ty'' (conjugated as an adjective). This often corresponds to the English
past participle
In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
, both in fully adjectival use and in
passive voice
A passive voice construction is a grammatical voice construction that is found in many languages. In a clause with passive voice, the grammatical subject expresses the ''theme'' or ''patient'' of the main verb – that is, the person or thing t ...
.
*subjectless past tense, formed as the past participle but with the ending ''-o'' (e.g. "there was sung").
*past
active participle
In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb, nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a wo ...
(perfective verbs only), like "having killed" (from "kill"); this form is invariant.
*
verbal noun
A verbal noun or gerundial noun is a verb form that functions as a noun. An example of a verbal noun in English grammar, English is 'sacking' as in the sentence "The sacking of the city was an epochal event" (''sacking'' is a noun formed from the ...
, also called
gerund
In linguistics, a gerund ( abbreviated ) is any of various nonfinite verb forms in various languages; most often, but not exclusively, one that functions as a noun. In English, it has the properties of both verb and noun, such as being modifiable ...
, formed from the past participle with the ending ''-ie'', e.g. . This is a neuter noun.
Prepositions
Polish uses
preposition
Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
s, which form phrases by preceding a noun or noun phrase. Different prepositions take different cases (all cases are possible except nominative and vocative); some prepositions can take different cases depending on meaning.
The prepositions ''z'' and ''w'' are pronounced together with the following word, obeying the usual rules for consonant cluster voicing (so "with you" is pronounced ). Before some consonant clusters, particularly clusters beginning with a sibilant (in the case of ''z'') or with ''f/w'' (in the case of ''w''), the prepositions take the form and (e.g. "in
Wrocław
Wrocław (; german: Breslau, or . ; Silesian German: ''Brassel'') is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, rou ...
"). These forms are also used before the first-person singular pronouns in ''mn-''; several other prepositions also have longer forms before these pronouns (''przeze mnie, pode mną'' etc.), and these phrases are pronounced as single words, with the stress on the penultimate syllable (the ''-e'').
Common prepositions include:
*''na'', with the locative with basic meaning "on", and with the accusative with basic meaning "onto" (also metaphorical meanings)
*''w'', with the locative with basic meaning "in", and with the accusative with basic meaning "into" (also metaphorical meanings)
*''z'', with the instrumental
comitative
In grammar, the comitative case (; abbreviated ) is a grammatical case that denotes accompaniment. In English, the preposition "with", in the sense of "in company with" or "together with", plays a substantially similar role (other uses of "with", l ...
meaning "with" (''in accompaniment of''); with the genitive meaning "from, out of"
*''do/od'', with genitive, meaning "to, into/from"
*''dla'', with genitive, meaning "for"
*''o'', with locative meaning "about", also with the accusative in some constructions
*''przed/za/nad/pod'' with instrumental meaning "before, in front of/behind/over/under", also with the accusative in some meanings (and genitive in the case of ); there are also compound prepositions ("from in front of" etc.) taking the genitive
*''przez'' with the accusative, meaning "through" etc.
*''przeciw(ko)'' with dative, meaning "against" (but "opposite" takes genitive)
*''po'', with locative meaning "after", also with the accusative in some meanings
*''przy'', with locative, meaning "next to" etc.
*''bez'', with genitive, meaning "without"
Conjunctions
Common Polish
conjunction
Conjunction may refer to:
* Conjunction (grammar), a part of speech
* Logical conjunction, a mathematical operator
** Conjunction introduction, a rule of inference of propositional logic
* Conjunction (astronomy), in which two astronomical bodies ...
s include (and less commonly ) meaning "and", and meaning "or", meaning "but", meaning "but" chiefly in phrases of the type "not ''x'' but ''y''", (or more formally sometimes ) meaning "that", meaning "if" (also , where is the conditional particle), meaning "whether" (also an interrogative particle), or meaning "when", , and meaning "so, therefore", meaning "because", meaning "although", and meaning "in order to/that" (can be followed by an infinitive phrase, or by a sentence in the past tense; in the latter case the of the conjunction is in fact the conditional particle and takes personal endings as appropriate).
In written Polish,
subordinate clause
A subordinate clause, dependent clause, subclause, or embedded clause is a clause that is embedded within a complex sentence. For instance, in the English sentence "I know that Bette is a dolphin", the clause "that Bette is a dolphin" occurs as t ...
s are normally set off with commas. Commas are not normally used before conjunctions meaning "and" or "or".
Syntax
Word order
Basic word order in Polish is
SVO; however, as it is a
synthetic language
A synthetic language uses inflection or agglutination to express Syntax, syntactic relationships within a sentence. Inflection is the addition of morphemes to a root word that assigns grammatical property to that word, while agglutination is the ...
, it is possible to move words around in the sentence. For example, ("Alice has a cat") is the standard order, but it is also possible to use other orders to give a different emphasis (for example, , with emphasis on ("has"), used as a response to an assertion of the opposite); general word order controls
theme and rheme
In linguistics, the topic, or theme, of a sentence is what is being talked about, and the comment (rheme or focus) is what is being said about the topic. This division into old vs. new content is called information structure. It is generally a ...
information structure
In linguistics, information structure, also called information packaging, describes the way in which information is formally packaged within a sentence.Lambrecht, Knud. 1994. ''Information structure and sentence form.'' Cambridge: Cambridge Univer ...
with theme coming first.
Certain words, however, behave as
clitic
In morphology and syntax, a clitic (, backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a w ...
s: they rarely or never begin a clause, but are used after another stressed word, and tend to appear early in the clause. Examples of these are the weak pronouns , etc., the reflexive pronoun , and the personal past tense endings and conditional endings described under
Verbs
A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descrip ...
above.
Polish is a
pro-drop language
A pro-drop language (from "pronoun-dropping") is a language where certain classes of pronouns may be omitted when they can be pragmatically or grammatically inferable. The precise conditions vary from language to language, and can be quite int ...
; subject pronouns are frequently dropped. For example: (literally "has a cat") may mean "he/she/it has a cat". It is also possible to drop the object or even sometimes verb, if they are obvious from context. For example, ("has") or ("has not") may be used as an affirmative or negative answer to a question "does... have...?".
Note the interrogative particle , which is used to start a
yes/no question, much like the French "est-ce que". The particle is not obligatory, and sometimes rising intonation is the only signal of the interrogative character of the sentence.
Negation is achieved by placing directly before the verb, or other word or phrase being negated (in some cases ''nie-'' is prefixed to the negated word, equivalent to English ''un-'' or ''non-''). If a sentence contains a negative element such as ("never"), ("no-one"), etc., the verb is negated with as well (and several such negative elements can be combined, as in , "no-one ever does anything", literally "no-one never doesn't do nothing").
The equivalent of the English "there is" etc. is the appropriate part of the verb ("to be"), e.g. ("there is..."), ("there are..."), ("there was..."), etc., with a noun phrase in the nominative. The negative form is always singular (and neuter where applicable), takes the noun phrase in the genitive, and uses rather than in the present tense: ("there isn't a cat", also "the cat isn't there"), etc. (as usual, the word order is not fixed).
Where two concepts are equated, the particle is often used instead of a part of , with the nouns expressing the concepts in the nominative case (although verb infinitives can also be used here: "to exist is to suffer"). There are also sentences where appears to be the subject of , but the complement is in the nominative and the verb agrees with the complement: ("this/it is..."), , , etc.
Subjectless sentences
There are various types of sentence in Polish that do not have subjects:
*Sentences where the subject pronoun is dropped (see above), but is still understood.
*Sentences formed from certain verbs that can appear (in third-person singular neuter form) without a subject, corresponding to an English impersonal "it", as in ("it was raining/snowing").
*Sentences with verbs in second-person singular (or sometimes third-person personal plural) form, but no subject, corresponding to English "you" with general meaning, as in ("you do this", ''i.e.'', "one does this").
*Sentences with the reflexive particle but no subject, the verb being third-person singular, as in ("here one drinks vodka/vodka is drunk") – note that the logical direct object is in the accusative, not the nominative as in analogous constructions in other languages such as Russian.
*Sentences with the subjectless past tense form of the verb (see
Verbs
A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descrip ...
above).
*Sentences with impersonal particles such as ("it is possible"), ("it is permitted").
Noun syntax
The use of the cases of nouns is as follows:
# The nominative (the
dictionary form
In morphology and lexicography, a lemma (plural ''lemmas'' or ''lemmata'') is the canonical form, dictionary form, or citation form of a set of word forms. In English, for example, ''break'', ''breaks'', ''broke'', ''broken'' and ''breaking'' a ...
of a noun) is used for sentence
subject and for certain complements (as in sentences of the form ''X to Y'' "X is Y", ''to jest Y'' "this is Y").
# The accusative is used for the direct object of verbs that are not negated, as the object of some prepositions, and in some time expressions.
# The genitive is used for possessor and similar (equivalent to English "of X" or "X's"), for the
direct object
In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but ...
of
negated verbs, as the object of some verbs and prepositions, as an object with
partitive In linguistics, the partitive is a word, phrase, or case that indicates partialness. Nominal partitives are syntactic constructions, such as "some of the children", and may be classified semantically as either set partitives or entity partitives ba ...
meaning and in some fixed expressions, and for nouns governed by certain numbers and expressions of quantity (see
Numbers and quantifiers above).
# The locative is used only as the object of certain prepositions (particularly "in" and "on", when they have static meaning).
# The dative is used for
indirect object
In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but ...
s, to denote the party for whom something is done or the "party concerned" in certain expressions (such as , "he is allowed", lit. "it is allowed to him"), and as the object of some verbs and prepositions.
# The instrumental is used for the means (instrument) by which something is done, for example (instrumental of "train") means "by train". It is also used for a noun complement of ("to be"), and for the complements and objects of some other verbs and some prepositions.
# The vocative is used to indicate who or what is being addressed. However, with personal names, in colloquial speech, the nominative is usually used instead.
Like most
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the Ear ...
, with the exception of
Bulgarian
Bulgarian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Bulgaria
* Bulgarians, a South Slavic ethnic group
* Bulgarian language, a Slavic language
* Bulgarian alphabet
* A citizen of Bulgaria, see Demographics of Bulgaria
* Bul ...
and
Macedonian, Polish uses no definite or indefinite
article
Article often refers to:
* Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness
* Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication
Article may also refer to:
G ...
s. A noun such as may mean either "the cat" or "a cat".
Polish does not regularly place nouns together to form
compound noun
A compound is a word composed of more than one free morpheme. The English language, like many others, uses compounds frequently. English compounds may be classified in several ways, such as the word classes or the semantic relationship of their ...
expressions. Equivalents to such expressions are formed using noun-derived adjectives (as in , "orange juice", where is an adjective derived from "orange"), or using prepositional phrases or (equivalently) a noun in the genitive or other case.
A group of nouns connected by a word for "and" is treated as plural. It is masculine personal plural if it contains any male person (in fact, if it contains any person and any masculine noun).
Adjective syntax
Adjectives generally precede the noun they modify, although in some fixed expressions and official names and phrases they can follow the noun (as in "Polish language"; also "good day, hello").
Attributive adjective
In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.
Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the mai ...
s agree in gender, number and case with the noun they modify.
Predicate adjective
In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.
Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the mai ...
s agree with the relevant noun in gender and number, and are in the nominative case, unless the subject is unspecified (as in some infinitive phrases), in which case the adjective takes the (masculine/neuter) instrumental form (for example, , "to be wise", although the nominative is used if the logical subject is specified). The instrumental is also used for adjectival complements of some other verbs, as in ("make him wise").
With pronouns such as ("something") (but not "someone"), if the pronoun is nominative or accusative, the adjective takes the genitive form (''coś dobrego'' "something good").
Adjectives are sometimes used as nouns; for example, ("green") may mean "the/a green one" etc.
Compound adjectives can be formed by replacing the ending of the first adjective with ''-o'', as in ("formal (and) legal").
References
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Polish Pronunciation Audio and Grammar Charts
{{Language grammars
Grammar
In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...