Middle Polish language

Middle Polish () is the period in the history of the Polish language between the 16th and 18th centuries. It evolved from Old Polish, and gave rise to Modern Polish.

Spelling

Many various orthographies were proposed to standardize Polish orthography, including Stanisław Zaborowski's in 1514, Jan Seklucjan's in 1549, Stanisław Murzynowski's in 1551, and Onufry Kopczyński's grammars of 1778 and 1785, all with varying degrees of success.

Phonology

Middle Polish's phonology differs from both Old Polish's and Modern Polish's, mainly in the vowels, but also somewhat in the consonants.

Consonants

Middle Polish's consonant system differs little from Old Polish's.

The clusters ''ir''/''irz''/''yr''/''yrz'' lowered to ''ér''/''érz'' and ultimately to ''er''/''erz''.
: ''czyrwony'' > ''czérwony'' > ''czerwony''
Similarly, the clusters ''il''/''ił''/''yl''/''ył'' sporadically and non-permanently lowered to ''el''/''eł''.
: ''był'' > ''beł''

There was also a tendency for prenasal raising.
: ''lepiánka'' > ''lepionka''
: ''tam'' > ''tąm''
: ''dom'' > ''dóm''
: ''nasienie'' > ''nasinie''
Or, conversely, sometimes vowels lowered.
: ''słuńce'' > ''słońce''

One major change was a de palatalization of the consonants //, //, //, //, //, and // to //, //, //, //, //, and // respectively.

The consonant // also underwent depalatalization, going from // to //, to // by the end of the sixteenth century.

Labials underwent depalatalization in coda position.

At the turn of 17th century L-vocalization begins, ultimately finishing in the Modern Polish era.

There was some wavering as to the softness of sibilants, as well.
: ''ślak''/''szlak''
: ''prozno''/''prożno''
: ''snicerz''/''sznicerz''
: ''synogarlica''/''sinogarlica''

The final consonant system at the end of the Middle Polish period was thus:

Vowels

Middle Polish inherited Old Polish's late vowel system.

At first there were two groups of vowels, so-called "clear" (Polish "jasny") vowels (transcribed /, , , , , /) and the so-called "slanted" (Polish "pochylony") vowels (transcribed /, , /), which arose from Old Polish long vowels.

There was a tendency for the pitched vowels to merge with some neighboring non-pitched vowel.
: ''é'' > e/y/i ''rzékę'' > ''rzekę'', ''dobrémi'' > ''dobrymi''
: ''á'' > a ''mám'' > ''mam''
: ''ó'' > u (still) written ó ''skóra'' > ''skóra'' (used in poetry to rhyme with ''dziura'')

Nasal // raised and fronted to //, whereas // raised and back to //, however there was some irregular shifting of nasal vowels, e.g. variations of ''ciążyć''/''ciężyć'', as well as spontaneous nasalization, e.g. ''czestować'' > ''częstować''.

The final vowel system was more or less similar to Modern Polish's vowel system.

Accent

Already in the 15th century one can find tendencies of fixing stress on the penultimate syllable, ultimately solidifying giving the modern Polish stress system. Between the 16th and 17th centuries, there was also a tendency to include enclitics in the stress pattern, e.g. ''bo'ję się'', ''moż'na by'', which did not continue. As this was happening, syncope occurred in words ending with ''-yja'' and ''-ija'', exclusively Latin borrowings, where the ''-y-'' or ''-i-'' was dropped. Sometimes these forms can still be seen in liturgical songs or prayers, such as "Zdrowaś Maryjo".
: ''Maryja'' > ''Maria''
: ''historyja'' > ''historia''

Morphology

Middle Polish inflection is characterized by a standardization of inflections. One of the major changes was the gradual loss of the dual, which ultimately only remain within certain nouns such as ''ucho'', ''oko'', and ''ręka''.

Nouns

Masculine plurals are separated further by animacy, resulting in a more stable system of three levels of animacy, inanimate, animate, and virile. The biggest change was the separation of animate and virile. Before, one could see the virile plural ''psi'' (dogs), with ''psy'' being the animate plural. Nouns changed their level of animacy during this period to some degree, for example the animate nominative and accusative plural ''filozofy'' (philosophers) instead of the now nominative virile plural ''filozofowie'' and the genitive and accusative virile plural ''filozofów'', ultimately settling in the 16th century.

This change ultimately affected the government of adjectives, verbs, pronouns, numerals, and participles, which all began to change their endings depending on the level animacy of the given noun.

For masculine nouns in the genitive singular we see wavering between ''-u'' and ''-a'', which lasts to this day. Similarly, there is some shifting in the singular dative between ''-u'' and ''-owi'', with ''-owi'' ultimately becoming more popular and ''-u'' being the dative singular only for a few nouns. In the plural, we see either ''-ów'' or ''-i''/''-y'' for nouns ending in ''-rz'' or ''-ż'', which continues to this day.

The softening masculine singular locative ending ''-e'' after velars changes to ''-u'', retained to this day.
: ''człowiek'' > ''człowiece'' > ''człowieku''
: ''bóg'' > ''bodze'' > ''bogu''
: ''grzech'' > ''grzesze'' > ''grzechu''

At the end of the 16th century we see a loss of the ending ''-i''/''-y'' for the instrumental plural and a generalization of the ending ''-mi'' as well as the proscribed ''-ami'', used originally only for feminine nouns in the instrumental plural. Nowadays the endings ''-i''/''-y'' can only be seen in fossilized phrases such as "ostatnimi czasy" and "innymi słowy".

Masculine and neuter nouns also underwent a generalization, originally ending with the suffix ''-ech'', or in the Lesser Poland dialect ''-och'', now ending in ''-ách'', which later changed to ''-ach''.

Feminine nouns in the nominative originally sometimes ended in either ''-a'' for hard stems and ''-á'' for soft stems, with ''-á'' ultimately dying off either due to sound changes, analogy, or both. Nouns ending in the clear ''-a'' took ''-ę'' in the accusative singular whereas those ending in ''-á'' took ''-ą''. When ''-á'' merged with ''-a'', the two accusative endings were kept for a short time, but ultimately ''-ę'' became the standard ending due to analogy.

The original genitive ending for feminine soft stems was ''-e'', changing to ''-i''/''-y''. One could also sometimes find ''-ej'' for this declension, as well as for feminine dative soft stems, but this did not last.

Feminine nouns in the dative plural changed from ''-am''/''-ám'' to ''-om'', matching the masculine and neuter dative plural ending. There are a few instances of masculine nouns taking the feminine ''-am''/''-ám'' endings, however, but they were rare.

Neuter nouns endings in pitched ''-é'' had a singular instrumental ending ''-im'' that later changed to ''-em''.

Possessive pronouns and adjectives

In the 18th century the ending ''-ą'' for feminine singular accusative possessive pronouns began to supplant the ending ''-ę''.
: ''twoję'' > ''twoją''
There was also variation in the masculine singular instrumental and locative ending in ''-emi'' and ''-ymi'', which lasted even in the orthography until the orthographical reform of 1936.
: ''nowemi'' > ''nowymi''

In the 16th century we see a replacement of ''-i''/''-y'' by ''-e'' for the masculine and accusative non-virile plural.
: ''ty (from ten) słowa'' > ''te słowa''
: ''wszystki'' > ''wszystkie''

Also in the 16th century we see ''-ej'' replace ''-e'' for feminine singular genitive.
: ''sługa wieczne mądrości'' > ''sługa wiecznej mądrości''

Verbs

The Middle Polish verb system doesn't differ too much from either the Old Polish or modern Polish verb system, however it is not identical. Some changes include:
# A loss of the ending ''-ęcy'' as the active adjectival participle for feminine subjects, being replaced by ''-ący''
# A replacement of the old imperative ending ''-i''/''y'' with ''-ij''/''-yj'' or a null morpheme
#: ''zamkni'' > ''zamknij''
#: ''zetrzy'' > ''zetrzyj''
#: ''weźmi'' > ''weź''
# A loss of the analytical past as well as aorist in favor of the new morphemes. However, the aorist was kept in Silesian
#: ''robił jestem''/''robiłech'' > ''robiłem''
# The conditional mood, originally formed with the aorist endings, was replaced by forms from the Proto Slavic participles, influenced by their use as past tense forms.
#: ''bych'' > ''bym''

References

Bibliography

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Further reading

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{{Polish language
Polish language
Polish, Middle