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Polish |
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| Indo-European | West Slavic |  Poland,  European Union Minority In:  Czech Rep. ,  Slovakia Romania,  Ukraine |
Extended Latin | |
Polish has three grammatical genders. Each of them has a distinctive declension paradigma, although there are also sub classes. Male animate nouns have a slightly altered paradigma compared to inanimated ones. There are no articles in Polish but it is usually easy to distinguish the gender by the noun endings.
Nouns
Male Gender
Male nouns usually end in consonants. There are a few nouns which end in -a but they denote persons only. They are semantically male but grammatically female in singular, so the accompanying adjectives or pronouns have to be chose according to the fitting case of the male declension paradigma, whereas the -a noun is declined like a female noun. The plural paradigma of -a nouns is exclusively male.
You will also meet adjectives which are used as nouns (usually a noun had been omitted and the trunctuated version became lexicalised). These will end in -y.
Examples:
- Male Gender:
Inanimate male nouns: dom, koszyk, długopis, stół, pokój, nóż, kościół, gwóźdź, handel, dach Animate male nouns: kot, pies, poeta, kolega, tygrys, chłopiec, lekarz, rybak, mąż, król, wilk
Feminine Gender
Female nouns usually end in -a. There are also other endings but those are rather rare, although they these nouns are frequently used, so that it is important to know them. They often also have slightly different declension paradigmas.
The female adjectives used as nouns end in -a.
Examples:
- Female Gender: ulica, ciocia, pensja, oferta, myśl, wieś, miłość, mysz, pani, noc, rzecz
Neuter Gender
Neuter nouns end in "-o" or "-e". Very few nouns end in "-ę". All nouns ending in "-um" are indeclinable in Singular but declined in a regular way in Plural.
The neuter adjectives used as nouns end in -e.
Examples:
- Neuter Gender: piwo, mleko, słońce, jabłko, pole, jezioro, imię, muzeum, obciążenie, krzesło
Adjectives
Male Gender
Male adjectives always end in eithr "-y" or "-i" like przeklęty, głupi, tani, drogi, mały, wysoki, rozległy.
Feminine Gender
Female adjectives always end in "-a" like przeklęta, głupa, tana, droga, mała, wysoka, rozległa.
Neuter Gender
Neuter adjectives always end in "-e" like przeklęte, głupe, tane, droge, małe, wysoke, rozległe.
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| Introduction · Adpositions · Gender · Lexicon · Pronouns · Sounds and Writing |
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