Grammatical gender of nouns
Noun is an inflected part of speech determining things, objects, places and persons. Noun is inflected for numbers and cases, and it has genders.
In Polish, there are three genders in singular number: masculine (
Nominative singular of most nouns has the following endings:
- Masculine gender ends with a consonant (e.g.
syn, pies, brat ). - Feminine gender ends with
-a (e.g.mama, ulica, córka ). - Neuter gender ends with
-o (e.g.kino, auto, nazwisko or-e mieszkanie, spotkanie ).
Number of nouns
Nouns can have singular or plural number.
Singular number is used when talking about one object (e.g.
Plural number is used when talking about a number of objects (e.g.
Some nouns have only plural number (e.g.
Inflection of nouns
In the Polish language, there are seven cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative and vocative. The case of a noun is determined by means of a question.
Singular number
Gender | masculine animate ( | masculine inanimate ( | feminine ( | neuter ( |
---|---|---|---|---|
Nominative | ||||
Genitive | ||||
Dative | ||||
Accusative | ||||
Instrumental | ||||
Locative | ||||
Vocative |
Plural number
Gender | masculine personal ( | non-masculine personal ( |
---|---|---|
Nominative | ||
Genitive | ||
Dative | ||
Accusative | ||
Instrumental | ||
Locative | ||
Vocative |
Nominative
Nominative is the basic form of a noun. In a sentence, nominative is never used with prepositions. Nominative answers the questions:
In nominative singular, most nouns have the following endings:
- Masculine gender ends with a consonant (e.g.
syn, pies, brat ). - Feminine gender ends with
-a (e.g.mama, ulica, córka ). - Neuter gender ends with
-o (e.g.kino, auto, nazwisko or-e mieszkanie, spotkanie ).
Some nouns have non-typical endings in nominative singular:
- ending
-a also appears in masculine gender (ten kolega, mężczyzna, dentysta ), - ending
–ę appears in neuter gender (to imię, kurczę ), - nouns in feminine gender may end with a consonant (
ta krew, kość ).
Genitive
Genitive is used after prepositions:
Some verbs (e.g.
Some masculine inanimate nouns in genitive singular form have the ending
Movable (reduced) e
Some nouns, when inflected, undergo changes in the root (e.g.
Plural nouns, which are feminine and neuter in singular number, have the so called zero ending in genitive. If in the word ending there are two consonants, in between such consonants a vowel will appear
Dative
Prepositions followed by dative:
Dative follows some verbs:
In the Polish language, endings of dative are in masculine gender
Note! Alternating sounds:
- ch + e = sze (
mucha → musze ) - d + e = dzie (
woda → wodzie ) - g + e = dze (
kolega → koledze ) - k + e = ce (
matka → matce ) - r + e = rze (
siostra → siostrze ) - zd + e = ździe (
gwiazda → gwieździe ) - dz → g (
koledzy → kolegom ) - ć → t (
klienci → klientom )
Accusative
Accusative follows prepositions:
Accusative is used after the following verbs:
Some nouns, when inflected, also show changes in the stem (e.g.
Instrumental
Instrumental follows prepositions:
Locative
Locative is used after the following prepositions:
Nouns with a hard stem have in locative the ending
Nouns in neuter and masculine gender with a soft stem and a stem ending with
Some nouns in feminine gender have the ending
Note! Alternating sounds:
- ch + e = sze (
mucha →o musze ) - d + e = dzie (
woda →w wodzie ) - g + e = dze (
noga →o nodze ) - k + e = ce (
matka →o matce ) - ł + e = le (
stół →na stole ) - r + e = rze (
rower →na rowerze ) - sł + e = śle (
krzesło →na krześle ) - st + e = ście (
miasto →w mieście ) - t + e = cie (
uniwersytet – na uniwersytecie ) - zd + e = ździe (
gwiazda →o gwieździe )
Vocative
Vocative is used when addressing someone.
Gerunds
Nouns which name acts and states are called gerunds. For most verbs, they are formed by cutting off an inflectional ending and adding a suffix to the stem
budować – budowanie biegać – bieganie projektować – projektowanie
chodzić – chodzenie robić – robienie mówić – mówienie
być – bycie pić – picie myć – mycie
Forming feminatives
Feminatives are formed from most masculine nouns by adding the suffix
masculine gender | feminine gender |
---|---|
In the Polish language, there are no feminative forms of some masculine names of academic titles, professions or job positions. A masculine name is then supplemented with the noun
masculine gender | feminine gender |
---|---|
In job advertisements and some communications names of job positions may relate to both genders although feminatives ......