Polish and English Morphology

Contrasted - II
Inflectional morphology of Polish and English
1. Nouns
1.1. Number
In both languages, ………………………………………………………………….
E: plural is built by ………………………………………………………………….
P: Polish rules for pluralisation are ………………………………………………………………….
There is …………………………………………………………………as in English foot/feet (notice
exception: wobor/wybory).
Plural depends on the gender of a noun (6 gender classes)
and morphonological properties of the stem expressed in
terms of the opposition hard - soft, velar - nonvelar
(379 morphonologic classes)
Pluralia and singularia tantum nouns ("always plural" and
"always singualr") appear …………………………………………………………………, though
two semantic equivalents belong to different number groups.
e.g. sg: furniture - sg|pl: mebel|meble
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

1.2. Gender
In both languages, …………………………………………………………………. The number
of gender categories in traditional grammar is …………………………………… for
both languages: …………………………………………………………………. However, in
order to unambiguously code the Polish nominal paradigm, we
need 5 genders - compared to 3 in English:

------------------------------------------------------
gender example decl.pattern freq.
------------------------------------------------------
masculine virile mnich, kreator A1,B1 14%
masculine animal rak, baran A1,B2 3.7%
masculine inanimate p/lot, kreator A2,B2 27.8%
masculine total 45.5%
feminine ryba A4,B4 37.7%
neuter echo A3,B2 15.8%
no gender drzwi B2 1.0%

No-gender category is …………………………………………………………………

EXERCISE
P * has grammatical gender on …………………………………………………………………noun;
* Polish gender coincides with ………………………………for human beings,
i.e. the gender of a noun is a direct function of the sex
of its referent (fem. dziewczyna). Exceptions are young
humans (as in English, e.g. niemowl/e) and diminutive or
augmentative forms, e.g. babsko).
Otherwise, Polish gender is usually …………………………………;
* the assignment of gender is signalled by means of an
…………………………………………………………………;
* as in other synthetic languages, in Polish endings are
…………………………………………………………………. The same ending signals noun gender
and noun case;

1
 * the three main gender forms are characteristic of
words that stand in an agreement with nouns:
………………………………………………………………….
E * gender is (usually) ………………………………………………………… morphologically
* English gender is usually ………………………………; most inanimate nouns
are ……………………………(exceptions are e.g. fem. moon, masc. sun)
* it ………………………………………………………… effect on the form of the associated
verbs or modifiers. The distinction is shown only in
………………………………………………………………… which agree with their ………………………………………
eg. Maryi spoke. Heri voice trembled.

1.3. Case
P: Uses ………………………………cases
- to express ……………………………………functions (subject, dir./indir. object)
- to ………………………………………………………certain types of adverbials (as
some English prepositions)
- to convey …………………………………… information (English quantifying
expressions)
E: In English morphological inflection for case occurs in
- in nouns to mark …………………………………………, e.g. Jack's horse
- in …………………………………………………………………pronouns to mark
+ …………………………………………………(my, your, his, her, its, our, their,
whose)
+ ……………………………………………………(me, you, him, her, it ,us, them, whom)