Polish morphology


The morphology of the Polish language is characterised by a fairly regular system of inflection as well as word formation. Certain regular or common alternations apply across the Polish morphological system, affecting word formation and inflection of various parts of speech. These are described below, mostly with reference to the orthographic rather than the phonological system for clarity.

Morphophonologic alternations

Declensions are generally divided into hard and soft declensions. Soft declensions are used when the stem of the noun ends in a soft consonant in all forms, while hard declensions are used by nouns with stems ending in a hard consonant in some forms.
Some nouns follow the adjectival declension, particularly if they are masculine nouns ending in -y/i. This applies even to some words with no apparent adjectival connection, such as Jerzy. Certain neuter nouns, mostly place names such as Zakopane and voivodeship names such as Wielkopolskie when used alone as nouns, follow the adjectival declension but take -em rather than -ym in the instrumental and locative.
The following generalisations can be made for the inflection of all nouns:
Masculine nouns typically end in a consonant and those inflect according to the masculine declension. Masculine nouns ending in -a follow the feminine declension in the singular, and the masculine declension in the plural. The same applies to male personal names in -o, although familiar first name forms like Franio follow the masculine declension throughout.
The following table shows the endings shared by all masculine nouns:
1 Some nouns ending in a palatal consonant may take the ending -mi instead of -ami; also pieniądz - pieniędzmi.
2 Except for personal nouns ending in -ec, mainly chłopiec - chłopcze, młodzieniec - młodzieńcze, ojciec - ojcze, starzec - starcze.
The rest of the cases are different for 5 different declension groups:
The following table compares all five declension groups:
Note also:
Irregularities in masculine nouns:
Feminine nouns usually end in -a, although a few end in -i. These are the "a-stem" nouns. A number of feminine nouns ends in a soft or hardened consonant; these are "i-stem" nouns.
The following table shows the feminine a-stem declension:
The following table shows the feminine i-stem declension:
SingularPlural
Nominativenocnoce
Accusativenocnoce
Genitivenocynocy
Locativenocynocach
Dativenocynocom
Instrumentalnocąnocami
Vocativenocynoce

Neuter nouns end in -o or -e, these are the hard and soft neuter "o-stems". A few end in -ę, the so-called "n-stem" and "t-stem" nouns.
The following table shows the neuter o-stem declension:
The neuter n-stem and neuter t-stem nouns decline as soft neuter o-stems in the singular but as hard neuter o-stems in the plural. In addition, they have shortened nominative/accusative/vocative singular forms ending in -ę.

Irregular nouns

Notable irregular forms include the following:
The following types of nouns are generally invariant, and do not inflect at all:
Foreign personal names of males are declined if at all possible; some special rules are applied depending on the original language. Those that end "-y" or "-i" generally follow the adjectival declension, but these are treated as -i, i.e. the previous consonant is soft, and this is shown in inflected written forms such as Tony'ego.

Adjectives

Adjectives agree with the noun they modify in terms of gender and number. They are declined according to the following pattern :
Most short adjectives have a comparative form in -szy or -iejszy, and a superlative obtained by prefixing naj- to the comparative. For example, tani has the forms tańszy and najtańszy . The following principles apply:
Adverbs are formed from adjectives with the ending -ie, or in some cases -o. Comparatives of adverbs are formed with the ending -iej. Superlatives have the prefix naj- as for adjectives. Irregular comparatives include lepiej, gorzej, więcej, mniej.

Pronouns

This section gives the declensions of Polish pronouns. For information on meanings and usage, see Pronouns in the article on Polish grammar.
Personal pronouns:
Polite 2nd person forms: pan and pani are declined like those nouns. The mixed-sex form państwo is masculine personal plural, but declines like the neuter noun państwo except that the accusative is państwa and the locative państwu.
Reflexive pronoun: G/A się, D/L sobie, I sobą.
Possessives: mój, twój, nasz, wasz are declined like adjectives, as are swój and pański. The third-person forms jego, jej and ich are invariant, as are other forms identical to genitives
Demonstrative: ten, declined like an adjective, except that the neuter N/A is to and the feminine accusative is tę. The prefixed form tamten is similar, but with feminine accusative tamtą.
Interrogative pronouns: kto, G/A kogo, D komu, I/L kim; and co, G czego, D czemu, A co, I/L czym. The derived pronouns ktoś/coś, ktokolwiek/cokolwiek, nikt/nic are declined similarly, although nic has the unaltered form instead of niczego when it is the object of a negated verb.
Others: wszystek, declined like an adjective, but neuter singular N/A wszystko, and masculine personal plural N wszyscy. The relative pronoun który is also declined like an adjective, as are każdy and żaden

Numbers and quantifiers

The declension of numerals is given below. For information on formation and usage, see Numbers and quantifiers in the article on Polish grammar.
Higher numbers are declined as nouns, and their multiples are treated as number+noun combinations.
In compound numbers only the last part of the number is inflected, except when there are both tens and units, in which case both of those are inflected, and when jeden, which is indeclinable in all compound numbers, is the last part of the number, in which case the second to last part is inflected.
Collective numerals:
Quantifiers:
The lemma of a verb is the infinitive, which usually ends in -ć.
If a verb includes a prefix, then it is generally conjugated like the unprefixed verb, although sometimes the prefix may change its form
The present tense may follow either of the following patterns:
The future tense of być also follows the above pattern: będę, będziesz, będzie,..., będą However the present tense of być is irregular:
The past tense of most verbs is formed by replacing the -ć of the infinitive with -ł for the masculine singular, -ła for feminine singular, -ło for neuter singular, -ły for feminine plural and -li for other plurals; then adding the endings -m, -ś, -, śmy, ście, - for 1S, 2S, 3S, 1P, 2P, 3P. For example, from być:
The personal past tense suffixes, which are reduced forms of the present tense of być, are clitics and can be detached from the verb to attach to another accented word earlier in the sentence.
Some verbs form their past stems differently:
The conditional is formed from the past tense plus by, the personal endings coming after the by. For example: byłbym/byłabym, byłbyś/byłabyś, byłby/byłaby/byłoby; bylibyśmy/byłybyśmy, bylibyście/byłybyście, byliby/byłyby. The endings are detachable clitics, like the past tense personal endings as mentioned above.
The future tense of imperfective verbs is formed using the future of być together with the infinitive, or the past form, of the verb in question. For example, the future of robić has such forms as będę robić/robił/robiła, będzicie robić/robili/robiły. The choice between infinitive and past form is usually a free one, but with modals governing another infinitive, the past form is used: będzie musiał odejść "he will have to leave".
The second personal singular imperative is formed from the present tense by dropping the ending, adding -ij for pronounceability ; or by adding -aj. Irregular examples include być: bądź, mieć: miej, dawać: dawaj, stawać: stawaj. Add -my and -cie for the 1P and 2P forms. To make third-person imperative sentences the particle niech is used.
Other forms of the verb are:
The modal verb powinien is conjugated with adjective-type and personal endings similar to the past tense It has only one tense, although on rare occasions, byłem, byłeś, był, etc. is added to show past meaning.

Prepositions and prefixes

Before some consonant clusters, particularly clusters beginning with a sibilant or with f/w, the prepositions z and w take the form ze and we. These forms are also used before the first-person singular pronouns in mn-; several other prepositions also have longer forms before these pronouns, and these phrases are pronounced as single words, with the stress on the penultimate syllable.
When z is used as a prefix, it is spelt s- if it is part of a voiceless consonant cluster. As preposition it is spelt z even if pronounced s. The epenthesis of -e- also applies to the prefixes w- and z-/s-, and to some others, such as roz-.

Word formation

Polish makes wide use of prefixes and suffixes in word formation. Some examples of this are: