Pronouns

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Remark: most of the examples below come from printed literature.

Among pronouns several categories are distinguished: subtantival, adjectival, numeral, adverbial pronouns. Substantival pronouns have inflexional and syntactical features of substantives, adjectival ones – of adjectives, etc. In some newer grammars a distinct category of pronouns is not even distinguished.

Table of pronouns

Substantival pronouns

Substantival pronouns act as substantives in the sentence and may occur as the subject. Several subclasses may be distinguished among them.

Among personal pronouns we count pronouns of the first person of singular and plural: ja ‘I’, my ‘we’, of the second person of singular and plural: ty, wy ‘you’, and of the third person. Pronouns of the 2nd person are applied only towards children, family members and close friends with whom we talk per “ty”. Contrary to English, there are distinct forms for singular and plural: ty is applied towards one person, wy towards two or more persons.

Addressing other people than children, family members and close friends needs applying forms which distinguish number and gender:

• pan – a man (D: pana, W: panie),
• pani – a woman,
• panowie – men (D: panów),
• panie – women (D: pań),
• państwo – group of men and women (D: państwa).

The pronouns pan, pani etc. are 3rd person pronouns as they need a form of the 3rd person of the verb. However, they frequently denote the second person. The nominative forms are used for the subject.

When addressing directly, starting a conversation, we apply the construction proszę + genitive (D) or the form of vocative (W), equal to nominative except masculine singular (pan – panie):

• proszę pana, proszę pani, proszę panów, proszę pań, proszę państwa – forms applied towards unknown people,
• panowie, (rarely) panie – instead proszę panów, proszę pań,
• panie profesorze, pani doktor – necessarily when we know the title of the person whom we are addressing;
• panie Grzegorzu, pani Katarzyno – forms applied ex. towards colleagues; the first name must be in vocative;
• panie Malinowski, pani Kowalska – official forms, used ex. towards subordinates; they may be accepted as impolite in other situations,
• panie kolego, pani koleżanko – also very official forms;
• Szanowny Panie, Szanowna Pani, Szanowni Państwo – forms used in letters and speeches.

Towards persons with whom we talk per “ty”, when addressing them directly, we use their Christian names as a rule, usually leaving them in nominative (ex. Grzegorz, Grzesiek); however vocative is necessary when we use some diminutive forms (ex. Grzesiu). When addressing a group of such people, the form słuchajcie is often used.

The proper 3rd person pronouns are the forms on, ona, ono, oni, one which distinguish gender just like adjectives (even if counted among substantival pronouns because they answer the questions for substantives – who? what?). They should not be used in the presence of persons whom they denote (in such a situation we use Christian names or phrases with pan, pani etc.). The pronoun on plays the deictic or anaphoric roles (see further) but other personal pronouns act similarly.

Personal pronouns in nominative are omitted unless they carry logical stress. The pronouns pan, pani etc. may never be omitted.

In declension of personal pronouns special enclitic forms exist. They must be applied after verbs (ex. widzę go – jego widzę ‘I see him’). The 3rd person pronoun has special forms used after prepositions, beginning with n- (ex. od niego – jego – go). In instrumental only such forms are applied (nim, nią, nimi).

The reflexive pronoun siebie, się, sobie, sobą refers to the subject of the sentence and it is obligatory then, undependently on the person and number of the subject. It brings many problems to non-Slavs in mastering Slavic languages. Case of this pronoun depends on syntactical requirements of the predicate.

The following sentences are correct:

• opowiadam o sobie (not *opowiadam o mnie),
• opowiadasz o sobie (not *opowiadasz o tobie),
• opowiadamy o sobie (not *opowiadamy o nas),
• opowiadacie o sobie (not *opowiadacie o was).

The sentence Piotr opowiada o sobie means that Piotr is the object: Piotr is telling about himself. The sentence Piotr opowiada o nim says about another person: Piotr is telling about him.

There is no nominative in the declension of the reflexive pronoun but there exists the enclitic form się in accusative (and also se in dative in the colloquial language, excluded in the careful speech). The form się loses its proper meaning with numerous verbs and becomes the reflexive particle.

The demonstrative pronouns may also play the same role as on:

• ten, ta, to, ci, te,
• tamten, tamta, tamto, tamci, tamte,
• ów, owa, owo, owi, owe.

The substantival meaning occurs when these words are applied without a substantive.

They all occur as:

• deictic pronouns, or proper demonstrative pronouns (ex. Kto to zrobił? – On. ‘Who did it? – He did’);
• anaphoric, pointing at a previously mentioned object (ex. Przeczytałem już książkę i oddam ci ją jutro. ‘I have already read the book and I will give it back to you tomorrow.’);
• cataphoric, foretelling an object to occur (ex. Odkąd go znam, Michał zawsze wyglądał na zadowolonego. ‘Since I got to know him, Michael have always looked glad.’ Ile cię trzeba cenić, ten tylko się dowie, kto cię stracił. ‘Only this one who has lost you will learn how much one must hold you dear’).

Anaphora need not be limited to one sentence, it often spreads on the previous one. In the anaphoric function without a substantive (as a substantival pronoun) the pronomen on, more rarely ten can occur. The pronoun to is applied in sentences with a nominal predicate. It points at the whole situation described in the previous sentence. Here are some examples to illustrate this:

• To Leon Kowalski. Jest on znanym lekarzem.
• Nakłamał ojcu strasznie, ale ten się nie zorientował.
• Każdy z walczących był uzbrojony. Ci zaciskali w pięści kawał ołowiu, tamci mieli kije w ręku, owi długie, ciężkie dyszle lub grube maczugi.
• Zadzwonił do niej we wtorek. Zrobił to po długim namyśle.

Cataphora in Polish is limited to one sentence and does not go beyond it.

Substantival interrogative pronouns are kto, co, któż, cóż. These pronouns does not distinguish number or gender; kto, któż refer to persons, co, cóż to the others (including animals). They occur as the subject of the main subject, ex. Kto to zrobił? as well as subordinate sentence, ex. Nie wiem, kto to zrobił ‘I do not know who did it’.

Interrogative pronouns are, as a rule, homophonic with relative pronouns. It does not concern the emphatic forms (-ż, -że) which do not rather occur in relative function. Sometimes other differencies are present too. Substantival interrogative pronouns kto, co have their relative counterparts, ex. Nie znam tego, kto to zrobił ‘I do not know the one who did it’. It is not always simple to distinguish them from interrogative ones. Relative pronouns always express anaphora.

A distinct category of generalizing pronouns contains the pronoun każdy. In old times there existed also the pronoun wszystek: nowadays only neuter collective form wszystko is in use as well as plural forms: wszyscy, wszystkie. The pronoun każdy and the forms wszyscy, wszystkie occur as adjective pronouns more frequently.

Substantival negative pronouns are nikt, nic.

Indefinite pronouns are ex. ktoś, coś, ktokolwiek, cokolwiek, as well as rarer forms, like kto bądź, kto tylko, byle kto, lada kto. Pronouns with -kolwiek play also the relative role. The Polish language, unlike English, does not distinguish both roles clearly:

• indefinite ktokolwiek – anyone,
• relative ktokolwiek – whoever.

Adjectival pronouns

Adjectival pronouns accompany substantives. Like adjectives, they distinguish forms for each gender.

The forms ten, tamten, ów, taki, ten sam, taki sam, inny belong to demonstrative pronouns; most of them can be applied both with a substantive (as adjectival pronouns) or instead of a substantive (as substantival pronouns).

Adjectival possessive pronouns (called possessive adjectives in the English grammar) have the same form as substantival possessive pronouns (ex. to jest mój kot ‘this is my cat’ – an adjectival pronoun, but ten kot jest mój ‘this cat is mine’ – a substantival pronoun). The first group of them contains pronouns which are declined by cases: mój, twój, nasz, wasz, swój, pański. Their gender and number must agree with features of the possessed object and not of the possessor, ex. every man, undependently on his/her sex, will say moje pióro ‘my pen’, adapting the form moje to the neuter gender of the word pióro. If several pens are by the same possessor, he/she will say moje pióra. Many possessors will say nasze pióra.

From among third person pronouns (used towards the person to whom we do not use “ty”), only the masculine form pański distinguishes gender of the object: pański kapelusz, pańska walizka, pańskie krzesło, pańscy ludzie, pańskie pomysły.

The second subgroup of the possessive pronouns contain forms which are not declined by cases, and which ignore features of the possessed object: jego (a single possessor of masculine or neuter gender), jej (a single possessor of feminine gender), ich (a group of possessors). Possessive pronouns derived from personal pronouns of the series of pan also belong here: pana, pani, panów, pań, państwa. The pronouns pański and pana are fully interchangeable, and instead of the examples above we can also say: pana kapelusz, pana walizka, pana krzesło, pana ludzie, pana pomysły.

The word order pański pociąg ‘your train’ is applied traditionally, but pociąg pana, pociąg pani, pociąg panów, pociąg pań, pociąg państwa. Under the influence of pański pociąg (and also jego pociąg) now one often speaks pana pociąg but the traditional word order is frequent all the time in other instances (and pań pociąg sounds even wierd).

It is worth to emphasize that the choice between twój and twoja depends on gender of the possessed object. In the same time the choice between pana and pani depends on sex of the possessor.

This is a list of questions to ask to a man and to a woman:

A special attention must be given to the reflexive possessive pronoun swój. It is in use when the possessor is the subject of the sentence, regardless on person. Contrary to the reflexive personal pronoun the use ofmój, twój, nasz, wasz is allowed.

So, the following sentences are all correct:

• opowiadam o swojej przygodzie (= o mojej przygodzie),
• opowiadasz o swojej przygodzie (= o twojej przygodzie),
• opowiadamy o swojej przygodzie (= o naszej przygodzie),
• opowiadacie o swojej przygodzie (= o waszej przygodzie).

In the third person a distinction must be preserved: opowiada o swojej przygodzie ‘he tells about his (own) adventure’ – opowiada o jego przygodzie ‘he tells about somebody else’s adventure’. Similarly the sentence Marcin pojedzie do jego ciotki means that he will go to his friend’s aunt and not to his own aunt.

Because of its meaning the pronoun swój is applied in nominative only very seldom in its proper function (authors of almost all grammars do not pay attention for it). One cannot say *to jest swoja przygoda because the possessed object would be the subject in such a sentence. The forms swój, swoje often happen in Polish texts but in the meaning of accusative, not nominative. The forms swoja, swoi happen rarely.

Swój can also mean the same as rodzimy, domowy, bliski, swojski ‘homely, familiar’, ex. sami swoi – nominative is not excluded in this meaning of course. Rare, sporadic instances of using swój in its proper meaning occur after jako which needs using nominative, ex. (found on the Internet):

Proces ten swe doskonałe spełnienie znalazł w wojnie irackiej – pierwszej wojnie, a raczej antywojnie, która została już z góry rozegrana jako swoja własna symulacja.

The correctness of this sentence arouses doubts, and perhaps jako symulacja samej siebie would be more correct.

Possessive pronouns are usually used in Polish when there is necessary to point at the possessor univocally. Besides they are omitted, sometimes even obligatorily: pan Nowak wyszedł z psem ‘Mr. Nowak has gone out with [his] dog’ (ze swoim psem would not be consistant with the language spirit). Personal pronouns in oblique cases are used more willingly than possessive pronouns, and that is why uderzyłem go w głowę ‘I hit his head’ is correct while *uderzyłem w jego głowę is incorrect.

Interrogative pronouns are który, jaki, czyj. The pronoun który has at least two meanings: it asks for sequence in a row (as the answer a ordinal numeral is expected then, ex. O której godzinie? ‘At what time’ – O piątej ‘At five o’clock’) or for showing a person or an object which belongs to a certain unsettled but definite, finished set (we expect a personal or demonstrative pronoun as the answer, or a name, ex. Który z was to zrobił? ‘Who did it’ – On ‘He did’). The pronoun jaki asks for a feature (Jakie dziewczyny lubisz? ‘What girls do you like’ – Wesołe ‘Gay ones’) or for a object from an undefinite set (Jaki masz numer telefonu? ‘What is your phone number’).

There also exist homonymic relative pronouns który, jaki, czyj (nowadays replaced by the genitive of the substantive relative pronoun kogo: the sentence Ta książka należy do tego, czyj podpis nosi ‘This book belongs to the one whose signature it carries’ sounds oldish now), and finally co, replacing other relative pronouns. Its interrogative counterpart is co za.

Indefinite pronouns are ex. któryś, jakiś, czyjś, którykolwiek, jakikolwiek, czyjkolwiek. The pronouns czyjś, czyjkolwiek are also termed possessive.

To the category of generalizing pronouns the form każdy is included.

Adjectival negative pronouns are nijaki, niczyj, and also żaden which can also be a numeral pronoun.

Numeral pronouns

Numeral pronouns have been treated together with numerals among which they are often counted.

Adverbial pronouns

Adverbial pronouns have been treated with more details in the part on syntax. Several peculiarities of them are worth to be mentioned.

And so, only kiedy may be applied as interrogative. In the relative meaning both gdy and kiedy may be used interchangeably. It is worth to be noticed that even if kiedyż is the (bookish) emphatic form of the interrogative pronoun kiedy, at the same time gdyż is not a pronoun at all but a conjunction rather.

The pronouns skąd, stąd have spatial (ablative) meaning while odkąd, odtąd have temporal meaning, ex. skąd wracasz? odkąd tu jesteś? ‘where are you coming from? since when have you been here?’. The pronoun jak długo is often applied instead of odkąd, especially in interrogative meaning (but jak długo can also have other meanings: przez jaki czas ‘for how long’ or dokąd ‘till when’). The homonymic conjunction stąd denotes implication (the same about the conjunction dlatego) and has not any connections with the pronoun skąd today.

The pronouns tu, tam have both locative (where?) and allative (where to?) meanings. In connection with this, the relative and interrogative pronoun gdzie is also used in the allative meaning instead of dokąd. Ex.:

• Gdzie byłeś? – Tam. (locative meaning);
• Dokąd idziesz? – Tam. (allative meaning);
• Gdzie idziesz? – Tam. (tantamount to the previous one);
• Dokąd idziesz? – Idę tam, gdzie pieprz rośnie. (an interesting joint of the allative tam and locative gdzie).

The pronoun dokąd has both spatial (allative) and temporal meanings, but dotąd has only temporal meaning, ex.:

• Dokąd jedziesz? – Tam.
• Dokąd będziesz tu siedział? – Dotąd, aż skończę.

An interesting peculiarity of the Polish syntax is necessarity to use negation after the relative pronoun dopóki with a perfective verb. Such a pronoun may be replaced with dotąd, aż or with the conjunction aż alone, but negation would be a language error then.

Negation is not used with an imperfective verb, and then one cannot use the conjunction aż.

One may always use dokąd instead of dopóki, keeping negation intact with a perfective verb. One may also apply jak długo, especially with an imperfective verb.

The pronoun dopóki is exclusively relative now, only dokąd or jak długo are used as interrogative nowadays.

The discussed oddities are illustrated with the following sentences:

Jak długo tu zostaniesz?
Dokąd tu zostaniesz?
— Zostanę, dopóki nie skończę.
— Zostanę, dokąd nie skończę.
— Zostanę dotąd, aż skończę.
— Zostanę, aż skończę.
— Zostanę, dopóki będę w stanie wytrzymać.
— Zostanę, dokąd będę w stanie wytrzymać.
— Zostanę, jak długo będę w stanie wytrzymać.

The pronoun czemu is felt as less elegant than dlaczego. Answering to it one may only use dlatego (even if the jocose or ironic temu happens sometimes in colloquial speech, especially when in the beginning of the sentence), together with the following conjunction że which can be divided from dlatego with a comma, or the comma can precede dlatego. Another possibility is using of the conjunctions bo, ponieważ. Orthoepic publications judge the combination dlatego, bo negatively, nevertheless it often happens to occur in Polish. On the other hand, omitting of the pronoun and the conjunction, and just giving the reason is correct. Ex.:

Dlaczego wyszłaś w taką pogodę?
Czemu wyszłaś w taką pogodę?
— Wyszłam dlatego, że musiałam zrobić zakupy.
— Wyszłam, dlatego że musiałam zrobić zakupy.
— Wyszłam, bo musiałam zrobić zakupy.
— Wyszłam, ponieważ musiałam zrobić zakupy.
— Wyszłam dlatego, bo musiałam zrobić zakupy. (niepoprawne)
— Temu, że musiałam zrobić zakupy. (żartobliwe, ironiczne)
— Musiałam zrobić zakupy.

Main page – Polish grammar

2008-02-26