Polish Reference Grammar 9783110853186, 9789027933133

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SLAVISTIC P R I N T I N G S AND R E P R I N T I N G S edited by C. H. V A N Indiana

SCHOONEVELD University

TEXTBOOK SERIES: 2

POLISH REFERENCE GRAMMAR

by

MARIA ZAGORSKA BROOKS University of Pennsylvania

1975 MOUTON THE HAGUE-PARIS

© Copyright 1975 in The Netherlands Mouton & Co. N.V. Publishers, The Hague No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers Copyright is claimed until September 30, 1979. Thereafter all portions of this work covered by this copyright will be in the public domain. This work was developed under a contract with the U.S. Office of Health, Education and Welfare. However, the opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of that Agency, and no official endorsement should be inferred.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 74-78500 ISBN 90 279 3313 8

Printed in Belgium by N.l.C.L, Ghent

To the Memory of My Parents

PREFACE

This book is a reference grammar of Polish with exercises. It is not intended to be a first-year textbook of Polish: students who will use it are expected to have studied Polish before. An attempt has been made to follow the linguistic terminology of the first-year text by Alexander M. Schenker, Beginning Polish (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966-1967). Students who have had training in Polish will be able to use the present volume either as a reference or as a review. The present work, henceforth called Grammar, consists of two parts: Part I contains the grammatical presentation and Part II contains review exercises. It is suggested that those students who want to use the Grammar as a reference grammar utilize the index in addition to the table of contents. Those students who use it as a review grammar will benefit most by studying each chapter in the order presented in the book and by reviewing the material using the exercises at the end of the book. The references pertaining to each chapter give linguistic works which the author has consulted frequently. Footnotes in the text are minimal in order to avoid distracting students; indebtness to various authors, no matter how great, is acknowledged through the references rather than in footnotes. References list a selection of most essential works only. In the Chapters on Rules of Spelling and on Punctuation, the author has drawn a substantial amount of information as well as some examples illustrating rules from the following books: Ewa i Feliks Przylubscy. Gdzie postawic przecinek ? (Warszawa, 1967); S. Jodlowski i W. Taszycki. Zasady pisowni polskiej i interpunkcji. (Wroclaw, 1965); Henryk Gaertner i Artur Passendorfer. Poradnik gramatyczny. (Warszawa, 1961); and Irena Arctowa. Razem czy osobno ? (Krakow, 1951). Some other chapters, such as the one on verbal aspects, are an adaptation of approaches from Russian to Polish. Acknowledgements are of books and articles and not of particular pages and are found in the chapter on References. The author wishes to gratefully acknowledge assistance and contri-

VIII

PREFACE

bution to the Grammar by the following persons: Dr. Natalia Pazuniak contributed to all chapters on morphology, Miss Lynn S. Roses and Mr. Joel S. Beritz have worked with the author on the Polish verb. The description of the verb conjugation presented in the article co-authored by Joel S. Beritz, Maria Z. Brooks and Lynn S. Roses, "Polish Conjugation", in the International Journal of Slavic Linguistics and Poetics, 1972, XV, 127-47, has served as the basis for the chapter on the verb. In addition, Miss Lynn S. Roses worked on verbal aspects, Mr. Joel S. Beritz worked on word-formation and the conditional mood, Dr. Peter Haikalis contributed to the chapter on the noun, and Dr. Richard Kittredge to chapters on syntax and conjunctions. Finally, my warmest gratitude goes to my family for their support and help, and to my deceased father, Karol Zagorski, who wrote the exercises and proof-read the manuscript with unfaltering enthusiasm. I would like to dedicate this book to the memory of my parents.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1972

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

VII

List of Tables

XV

The Polish Alphabet

XVI

PART ONE: GRAMMAR

I.

Letters and Letter Combinations

3

II.

Pronunciation Vowels Consonants Consonantal Assimilations Word Stress

5 5 7 13 15

III.

Rules of Spelling Capital and Small Letters Joint or Separate Spelling of Words

18 25 26

IV.

Punctuation

35

V.

Nouns Gender Declension Patterns of Nouns Feminine Declension (I) - Singular Masculine-Neuter Declension (II) - Singular Vocalic and Consonantal Alternations Non-personal Declension - Plural Personal Declension - Plural Unusual Paradigms of Nouns

42 42 45 48 56 71 75 93 100

X

VI.

VII.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Pluralia Tantum - Nouns in the Plural Only Singularia Tantum Appendix 1

108 113 116

Syntax of Nouns The Meaning and Function of Cases Forms of Address

123 123 135

Verbs Consonantal Alternations Derivation of Prevocalic and Preconsonantal Stem Alternants Distribution of Vocalic and Consonantal Desinences in the Formation of Tenses, Participles and Gerunds The Present Tense Formation of the Present Gerund and the Present Participle Formation of the Imperative The Infinitive The Preterit Tense (Past Tense) The Preterit (Past) Gerund The Conditional Mood The Future Tense The Pluperfect Consonantal and Vocalic Alternations of the Preconsonantal Stem Alternant before Preterit Tense and Past Gerund Desinences Conjugations of Difficult Verbs Past Passive Participle A Summary of Vocalic Alternations Verbal Noun Verbal Aspects Verbs of Motion

140 142

174 186 198 201 204 205 214

VIII.

A List of Common Secondary Imperfective Verbs . . .

218

IX.

Syntax of Verbs Verbal Aspect. Its Meaning and Use The Meaning and Use of Verbs of Motion Reflexive Verbs Transitive and Intransitive Verbs Conditional Sentences

234 234 246 253 256 260

143 153 156 162 162 167 167 170 170 172 173

TABLE OF CONTENTS

XI

X.

Adjectives Declensional Patterns of Names Comparison of Adjectives

265 271 277

XL

Adverbs Comparison of Adverbs: Comparative and Superlative Degrees

283 284

XII.

Nominal Derivation Nouns Adjectives

286 288 292

XIII.

Pronouns Declension of Pronouns Personal Pronouns Possessive Pronouns Reflexive Pronoun sobie and siq Relative and Interrogative Pronouns Indefinite Pronouns Demonstrative Pronouns Negative Pronouns Pronouns of a General Character

295 295 296 298 302 302 305 306 308 309

XIV.

Numerals Quantifying Numerals Ordinal Numerals

314 315 328

XV.

Syntax of Numerals Syntactic Combinations of Numerals 1, 2, 3, 4 with the Nouns They Quantify Syntactic Combinations of Numerals Pied (5) and Above with Nouns They Quantify Syntactic Agreement of Subject Phrases Containing Numerals with the Verb of the Predicate Syntactic Agreement of Subject-Like Phrases Containing Numerals with the Verb of the Predicate in Subjectless Constructions Syntax of Compound Numerals

329

332 332

Prepositions Time Place Aim

334 334 337 344

XVI.

329 329 331

XII

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cause Manner Condition

345 345 346

XVII.

Conjunctions General Characteristics

350 350

XVIII.

Practical Syntax of a Simple Sentence The Subject The Predicate The Passive Voice Subjectless Sentences Direct and Indirect Objects The Attribute Adverbial Modifiers Commands and Requests Negation Word Order

359 359 363 372 375 379 381 386 389 391 393

XIX.

Remarks on Compound and Complex S e n t e n c e s . . . .

396

PART TWO: EXERCISES

XX.

The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The

Noun Genitive and Dative Singular Dative and Vocative Singular Nominative and Accusative Plural Locative Singular Nominative Plural Genitive and Locative Singular Nominative Plural Accusative Plural Nominative and/or Accusative Plural Genitive Plural and/or Singular Instrumental Plural Genitive Plural and/or Singular Instrumental Plural Locative Plural Plural Singular and/or Plural Dative and Locative Singular

403 403 405 406 407 408 410 411 411 412 413 416 417 417 418 419 423 426

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The The The The The

Genitive Singular Genitive, Dative and Locative Singular Genitive and Vocative Singular Accusative and Instrumental Singular Genitive and Instrumental Singular

XIII 426 426 427 427 427

XXI.

The Verb Derivation of PC and PV Stems Verbs with Alternate Present Tense Conjugations . . . The Present Participle and the Present Gerund The Imperative The Infinitive The Preterit Tense The Past Gerund The Conditional The Future Tense The Pluperfect Verbs with the Infinitive in -sc The Past Passive Participle The Verbal Noun The Verbal Aspect Verbal Prefixes Verbs of Motion

428 428 434 437 439 442 443 451 453 456 458 459 460 461 462 470 472

XXII.

The Adjective. The Adverb The Nominative and Genitive Plural The Long and Short Form Adjective Cases The Positive, Comparative and Super lative Degree . . The Adjective: Positive, Comparative and Super lative Degree and the Adverb

476 476 476 477 479

XXIII.

The Pronoun

488

XXIV.

The Numeral

491

XXV.

Prepositions

495

XXVI.

Conjunctions

503

XXVII. Syntax The Gender of Nouns The Subject

507 507 508

485

XIV

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Predicate The Adverbial Modifier Agreement The Active and Passive Construction

509 511 512 515

XXVIII. A Dictionary of Verbs

516

References

573

Index

576

LIST OF TABLES

I.

The Distribution of Various Genders Among Declensions

44

II. Summary of Consonantal Alternations in Nouns

114

III. Consonantal Alternations in Verbs

142

IV. Formation of the Present Tense

156

V.

157

Formation of the Present Tense for PV stems in -aj-, and -dz-

THE POLISH ALPHABET

Capital A

Printed Form Lower Case

£ D Ε —

F G Η I J Κ L L

Printed Form Lower

€

Μ Ν Ν 0 ό Ρ R S

/

$

8 h i j k I t

Τ υ W Υ ζ 1 ζ or ζ

a

—

Β C

Capital

b c c d e

m η ή 0 ό Ρ r s έ t u W

y ζ ζ ζ

The names of these letters are respectively: a, q, be, ce, cie, de, e, q, ef, ge, ha, i, jot, ka, el, et, em, en, ο, ο ζ kreskq or ο kreskowane, pe, er, es, ei, te, u, wu, igrek [ipsilon], zet, ziet, zet.

PART ONE

GRAMMAR

I LETTERS A N D LETTER COMBINATIONS

The sounds expressed by c, dz, ή, s, and ζ are written this way only if the sound that immediately follows is a consonant, or if they occur in absolute word-final position. Before a vowel: c dz ή s ζ

is written is written is written is written is written

as as as as as

ci dzi ni si zi

The combination of "consonant plus i", in general, represents a corresponding palatalized sound. Thus [p ']-pi [b'] - bi

[m']-mi [k'] - ki

[Π-fi [w'] - wi

\E']-gi [h'] - hi

These letters are not marked with ': only the letter i is used as a mark of palatalization. Whenever i is used as a morphological ending, at the same time it also serves as a mark of palatalization and only one i is written to serve both functions, e.g.: rqka - rqki. When the letter combinations pi, bi, fi, wi and mi occur in word-final position they do not represent merely palatalized counterparts of p, b, f , w, and m but rather a combination of a palatalized consonant FOLLOWED by a morphological ending, i written AFTER a consonant and BEFORE a vowel (and NOT elsewhere) is a sign of palatalization. In addition to a combination of consonants and i, the following combinations of two letters stand for a single sound: ch, cz, dz, dz, sz, rz. Each of the following pairs of letters represents the same sound.

4

GRAMMAR

Letter combinations listed below represent the same sound as single letters listed to the side: ch sounds the same as h ό sounds the same as u rz sounds the same as i

II PRONUNCIATION

VOWELS The following are Polish vowels: Spelling

Pronunciation [a] as in English car

a

[e]

bet

e, ζ

ale wtem, idq

[i]

feet

i

i

[y] [θ]

b it CflMght

y 0

pytac

[u]

pool

0, u

kröl, ucho

[?] pronounced as nasal [e]

€

kqs

[ρ] pronounced as nasal [ö]

a

kqs

oko

The sign [ ~ ] stands for nasality, [i] and [y] are variants of the same phoneme and their distribution is as follows: [i] occurs after palatalized consonants or word-initially and [y] occurs elsewhere. Thus, they can be represented by one symbol /i/ if provision is made for marking the preceding consonants as palatalized before [i] and as nonpalatalized before [y].

Nasal Vowels: Pronunciation

of ς and 3

The letters q and ς represent various sounds or combinations of sounds depending on their position in a word. The letters g and q represent true nasal vowels [e] and [o] if they stand BEFORE

fricatives such as those represented by letters s, s, sz, z, z, z, rz,

f , w, or if they occur in word-final position. In position before fricatives the letters q and q stand for nasal vowels DIPHTHONGS

[E]

and

[0]

or actually the

[eu] and [oii\. In word-final position letters

G

NASAL

and q represent

nasal diphthongs in formal, emphatic speech. In word-final position

6

GRAMMAR

they can everyday represent of young

also represent oral diphthongs [ou] and [eu] in colloquial, speech or q can represent an oral diphthong [ou] and ς can an oral vowel [e]. The last situation prevails in everyday speech educated Poles.

Examples: (a) before fricatives: [e] wqszyc [Ö] wqs (b) word-finally: [e] idq [ou] idq The phonetic representation of letters ς and q before fricatives and word-finally exhausts the occurrence of nasal vowels or, actually, nasal diphthongs in Polish. It does not exhaust all the occurrences of the letters