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Lesson five. Subject: The postalveolar Polish sounds. The adjectives
Correct plural forms are: adidasy, Anny, ary, atlasy, autobusy, barany, dary, domy, dywany, Edyty, Ewy, fazy, filmy, giełdy, igły, Iwony, jamy, jazy, jazdy, kawy, kliny, klipsy, koty, kozy, krowy, kury, lampy, lasy, liany, liny, lipy, listopady, łany, łaty, mamy, mapy, małpy, maty, maty, mety, metry, nosy, obiady, ogiery, pały, panny, prezenty, riposty, sanny, sosny, stawy, sufity, teatry, tematy, trafy, traktory, wazy, windy, wody, zasady.
Those with k, g: buki, byki, długi, figi, fiołki, główki, igreki, indyki, kuzynki, lalki, łapki, łatki, łuki, maki, matki, nogi, paki, pałki, piaski, pieski, piski, podłogi, ptaki, raki, słoiki, stoliki, stołki, suki, tiki, wilki, wnuki.
Words hidden in the diagram: baran, bóbr, bydło, byk, indyk, kogut, kot, koza, krowa, kura, małpa, muł, ogier, pies, rak, wilk. The word bydło is a little tricky, as it does not denote a single animal.
You should continue only if you have done all the exercises well.
There is not a sound resembling the English (or German) h in Polish. The greater part of Poles does not distinguish ch from h. The sound represented by both the letter h and the digraph ch has nothing to do with English ch either. It is near but not identical with the Spanish “jota” (spelt j and sometimes g), the German “ach-laut” spelt ch and also with the Scottish ch. The Polish sound is a spirant that has the same place of articulation as k, g (or very near). So, the Polish h/ch is velar while the Spanish, Scottish or German sounds are uvular (articulated farther in the buccal cavity).
Even if there is still a small group of Poles who pronounce the h in another way than the ch, they are not distinguished in the standard language. For these who pronounce the h unlike the ch, it is a voiced laryngeal or pharyngeal spirant – also different than the English h. You do not need to learn such a pronunciation. For most Poles the difference h – ch is only a needless spelling ballast generating bad marks in schoolchildrens’ notebooks. I will use only the [h] symbol for both ch and h.
The Polish h/ch is positionally independent, contrary to the German ones (the Polish ich has the ach-laut, not the ich-laut). Here are some examples for you: ucho ‘ear (part of body)’, herbata ‘tea’, ich ‘their’, choinka ‘Christmas tree’ (three syllables: [hoinka]), słucham ‘I am listening’, alkohol ‘alcohol’, dach ‘roof’.
The h/ch sound has a soft variant when before the i: Chiny ‘China’ (read it [h′iny]!), historia ‘history, story’ ([h′istorja]). When before a vowel, the group hi/chi represents [hj] (only in not too many loanwords): hiena ‘hyena’, sometimes being simplified into just soft [h′]: hieroglif ‘hieroglyph’ ([h′eroglif]; we could say it is a particular sound then, not a variant).
The Polish [h′] is never so soft as the German ich-laut – German China and Polish Chiny differ a little. The softness of the [h′] is caused by the next sound, not by the previous one like in German (that’s is why the Polish ich has the hard [h]).
It is as if the soft variant of the n but in fact it is a postalveolar soft nasal sonorant. It resembles the French and Italian gn, Portugalian nh or Spanish ñ, but (contrary to them) the end of your tongue must touch the area behind the gums when you are pronouncing the Polish sound.
It is spelt in three ways depending on its position:
The group ni before a consonant or word-finally always represents [ńi], also in all loanwords, so you cannot have any doubts how to read words containing it. But before a vowel it may mark both [ń] or [ńj] (only in loanwords; the cluster [nj] with the hard n is impossible in Polish), e.g. Rumunia ‘Roumania’ ([rumuńja]).
When the ń is followed by a spirant (mainly by s), your tongue should not touch the postalveolar region any more. You should pronounce a kind of nasal j. I will mark it using the two succeeding symbols [j~] because if I wanted to use one symbol, I would be obliged to change the coding manner of my pages into Unicode. The example: pański ‘your, sir’ (toward a mister: [paj~ski]). In a very slow speech also [pański] is acceptable (but harder to pronounce).
They are soft – their places of articulation is the same as the ń. The English sh can sometimes remember the Polish ś but those are different sounds. Try to pronounce sh but more softly – you have already known what it means in Polish. German “ich-laut” is between Polish ś and soft [h′]. Of course the ś is voiceless while the ź is voiced (a little bit similar sound can be heard when pronouncing English pleasure).
The rules of the spelling are the same as of the ń. Examples:
You will have no problems with si, zi before a vowel because they always denote [ś, ź] (no problems with possible j here – cf. pi, bi, fi, wi, mi, ni). But there are some borrowed words with si, zi before a consonant (or word-finally) when you must read [si, zi], not [śi, źi] as the rule says, e.g. sinus ‘sine’ ([sinus]), sinologia ‘sinology’ ([sinologja]; cf. siny with regular pronunciation!!!).
They are affricates. Affricates are complex sounds consisting of a stop and a spirant connected very closely. We will treat them always as single sounds because their components can also stay together not forming an affricate. So, c is the letter for the affricate consisting of t and s while dz is a clear symbol (digraph). I will be used this digraph too due to technical problems; when dz does not represent an affricate, I will write [d|z]. Notice that the Polish c does not mark k like in English but an affricate corresponding to the Italian and German z. The dz is its voiced counterpart.
The c, dz are hard and they do not like i. There are only extremally rare loanwords with real group ci (I do not known even one example for dzi). When the j follows c, dz it is spelt j and thus causes no problems with reading. Some examples now: córka ‘daughter’, lipiec ‘July’, sadza ‘soot’, dzwon ‘bell’, chcę ‘I want’ ([hce]), słońce ‘sun’, ulica ‘street’ (do not read it with -ka!), kolacja ‘supper’, spódnica ‘skirt’, oślica ‘jenny, she-ass, she-donkey’, kocur ‘he-cat, Tomcat’.
They are affricates as well but consisting of t+ś, d+ź. As they are soft, they like i and do not like y. The spelling rules are the same as for ń, ś, ź. Examples:
You have already known the rule of final devoicing. There is another rule saying that a voiced becomes voiceless before a voiceless. As the result we have two voiceless consonants. Examples: główka ([głufka], see lesson 2), babcia and babka ‘grandmother’ ([bapća], [bapka]), bluzka ‘blouse’ ([bluska]), owca ‘sheep’ ([ofca]).
The voiced w becomes the voiceless f also after a voiceless (even if a small number of Poles preserves w here – they speak a little strange and incorrect). Hence we have państwo ‘ladies and gentlemen’ ([paj~stfo] – do you remember of the ń before a spirant?), kwiecień ‘April’ ([kf′ećeń]), kwiat ‘flower’, kwit ‘receipt’, twój ‘your, yours, thy’ ([tfuj]), świnia ‘pig, swine’ ([śfińa]), świerk ‘spruce, Picea’ ([śf′erk]), twardy ‘hard, tough’.
We get the stem of the word when we have cut the ending (a final vowel in the singular form). Because Polish nouns are very diverse, we will treat substantives, adjectives, numerals and pronouns particularly.
Substantives with stems ending in soft consonants have -e in plural, just like those ending in j, l. As the ć, dź, ń, ś, ź are soft consonant, they can never be followed by the y. That is why the plural ending is -e – by this you must not forget about those three spelling rules! So, we have miś, słoń but misie, słonie, also pani [pańi] but panie [pańe]. Of course, when the singular ending is -a, there are not spelling changes: suknia – suknie. Can you write the correct plural forms to alkohol, babcia, dłoń, historia, jesień, kolacja, koń, świnia now?
The ending -e is the proper one not only for substantives ending in ń, ś, ź, ć, dź, j, l – each of soft consonants requires this ending, e.g. ziemia – ziemie. There is also a (big) number of soft-stemmed substantives having the zero ending (in singular): the above mentioned miś, dłoń, jesień belong to this group, but not always you can guess that the given substantive is soft-stemmed. I mean e.g. paw, tułów – their stems end in [w′], not [w]. Because the [w′] is final, it hardens into common [w]. But in the plural form you must restore soft [w′] before the ending: pawie, tułowie (ó : o alternation). You’d better treat them as irregularities and memorize their plural forms.
If the stem ends in c, dz, we use the ending -e as well, even if they are hard consonants. So we have ulica – ulice. Can you make plural forms of kocica, oślica, owca, sadza, spódnica?
Some soft-stemmed substantives (also those with c) have the fleeting e. In kwiecień, grudzień we have also consonantal changes: kwietnie, grudnie – let them be just irregular for you, as for now. See also lipiec, sierpień – lipce, sierpnie with p hardened before a consonant, like always.
The substantive wieś has the fleeting e and its plural form is wsie [fśe]. Another, alternative (and older) form is wsi [fśi]. Variant forms are enough common in Polish, unfortunately – if you want to be able to speak Polish, it will be enough if you choose one of the forms. But to understand Poles you need to learn both variants.
The plural form of the most part only just mastered hard-stemmed substantives should causes no problems to you, e.g. dziad, dzwon, herbata, hiena, hieroglif, kocur, kwiat, rodzina, sinus, siostra, ściana, zima. Since h/ch can join the y, the plural form of dach is dachy. Can you write plurals to babka, bańka, bluzka, choinka, córka, dźwig, Gośka, Monika, październik, Uśka now? Remember about the y > i shift after k, g!
You must memorize three exceptional plurals: kocioł – kotły, kozioł – kozły, osioł – osły. You can see here some consonantal alternations. Moreover, they are the only instances of the fleeting o in the Polish language.
Words indicating men can have other plural endings. For now, you should memorize some words with the -owie ending: pan – panowie (do not forget the spelling rule: [panow′e]), dziad – dziadowie, mag – magowie, syn – synowie, tata – tatowie, dziadek – dziadkowie (fleeting e), ojciec – ojcowie (highly irregular). All Christian names of men also have this ending: Bogdanowie, Robertowie, Tomkowie. See also bóg – bogowie (with alternation – there are many gods in polytheism). There are also other “special”, masculine-personal endings in plural forms: biskup – biskupi, gigant – giganci, kuzyn – kuzyni, brat – bracia.
In some instances both forms, the one with the “common” ending (-y, -i, -e) and the one with the “special” ending, are in use. The first one is colloquial, household, coarse or even insulting (e.g. dziady – about old men, especially poor or dirty), the second one is neutral, literary, sometimes lofty, exalted (e.g. dziadowie – about one’s grandfathers or ancestors). Sometimes you can hear only the common form, sometimes only the special one. We can assume that every masculine personal substantives are able to receive the common, regular ending (even if e.g. bogi would be a very uncommon form), but some (most?) of them use mainly the special form that I will give you in all instances.
When a substantive ends in -o or -e in singular, the plural ending is -a. Examples: miasto – miasta, okno – okna, wino – wina, pole – pola, śniadanie – śniadania. Now make plurals of ciało, mleko, piwo, słońce.
Polish adjectives have three forms in singular and two forms in plural. The first singular form (given in dictionaries) is called masculine. We have also neuter and feminine forms in singular. The two plural forms are called masculine-personal and non-masculine-personal. The gender of a substantive tells you which form of an adjective must be chosen.
These simple rules let you guess the gender in the following examples:
Exceptions.
The adjectival endings are:
Let’s look only on singular forms now. Analyse the examples: młody byk, młoda krowa, młode koźlę, mały stolik, małe pole, mała dłoń, nowa wieś. Are they all right? Do you understand now what “gender” means and how must you adjust the form of the adjective to the gender of the substantive? If yes, give the correct forms for miły + paw, jazda, pan, dom, słońce, wieś, oślica, tata, diabeł. The solution in the next lesson.
Say: nazywam się… (your name). This się (read [śe]) is an enclitic particle I will tell you about later. It is linked to the preceding word but without any stress shift: [nazywam-śe].
The following diagram contains Polish names of 19 animals, plants and related things (so searching for ‘flower’, ‘garden’ or ‘field’ will be all right). Can you find them all? The list of these words is given in the next lesson.
| K | U | B | Ń | P | M | U | Ł | K |
| O | R | O | O | A | Ś | F | P | O |
| T | Ł | E | K | W | I | A | T | G |
| S | A | D | I | O | E | A | A | R |
| U | P | N | Ł | W | C | L | K | Ó |
| K | I | E | R | W | Ś | U | O | D |
| A | K | S | O | S | N | A | R | P |
Please repeat the material until you are sure you can do all what you should.
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