1. Verbal inflection. The verb of the sentence is inflected to show agreement with the subject of the sentence for the features of person and number. In English we add -s to the stem of the verb when the subject of the sentence is third person and singular (he/she sings) and nothing to the stem of the verb when the subject is first or second person or third person plural (I/you/we/they sing). In Polish there are six distinctions to be made, for three persons in the singular and three in the plural. The associated pronouns are:

	SINGULAR	PLURAL
1ST PERSON	ja (I)	my (we)
2ND PERSON	ty (you)	wy (you)
3RD PERSON	on (he), ona (she), ono (it)	oni, one (they)

Oni is "they" referring to male persons and groups including male persons; one is for other than male persons. Besides "he, she, it, they", a 3rd-person subject may be any noun, such as pan, pani, student, książka, etc. in the singular and państwo (ladies and gentleman), panie (ladies), panowie (gentlemen), okulary, studenci (students), etc. in the plural.

Form the question "Is it you?" using the full range of 2nd- and 3rd-person equivalents of "you". Answer with "Yes, it's me/us".

2. Conjugations. Verbs in Polish fall into formal classes called conjugations according to the shape they take when person-number endings are joined to the stem. The person-number endings are these:

	SINGULAR	PLURAL
1ST PERSON	-m or -ę	-my
2ND PERSON	-sz	-cie
3RD PERSON	-Ø	-ą

2.1 1st-conjugation verbs are characterized by the vowel -a- preceding the endings. Examples:

	"have"	"love"	"remember"	"read"	"wait"
(ja)	mam	kocham	pamiętam	czytam	czekam
(ty)	masz	kochasz	pamiętasz	czytasz	czekasz
on	ma	kocha	pamięta	czyta	czeka
(my)	mamy	kochamy	pamiętamy	czytamy	czekamy
(wy)	macie	kochacie	pamiętacie	czytacie	czekacie
oni	mają	kochają	pamiętają	czytają	czekają

First- and second-person pronouns are normally omitted when not emphasized. Thus "I'm reading a book" is normally just Czytam książkę, but in a sentence like "He's washing the dishes, while I'm reading a book", where the pronoun bears contrastive emphasis, "I" would be expressed: ... a ja czytam książkę.

Answer the questions affirmatively (Tak, ...). l. Czy czytasz powieść? 2. Czy Jadzia kocha dziecko? 3. Czy pamiętacie Jurka (George)? 4. Czy ja mam twoje pióro? 5. Czy państwo (= you) czekają na autobus (for a bus)? 6. Czy pani kocha Polskę (Poland)? 7. Czy czytacie Szekspira? 8. Czy czekasz tam? 9. Czy pamiętasz co czytasz? 10. Czy pan ma czas (time)?

Express in Polish. 1. My sister has my comb. 2. We love the Polish language (język polski). 3. Jadzia remembers the Polish museum. 4. Are you waiting for your child? 5. Do you (folks) have a big apartment? 6. What are you reading (said to one's aunt, ciocia)? 7. Do you remember that Polish film (said to one's grandmother, babcia)? 8. Do you (gentlemen) have money? 9. Whose bicycle does Stanis

aw have? -- His own (swój). 10. Do you (Daddy, tatuś) have my notebook? 11. What are you waiting for? 12. Is Mummy (mamusia) reading a novel? 13. Do you love me (mnie)? 14. What do we have here? 15. Stan has a new bicycle.

3. Case. In English, pronouns change their form to reflect their role in the sentence. The third-person plural pronoun has the form they in They went home because it is the subject of the sentence, it has the form them in We saw them because it is the direct object of the verb saw, and it has the form their in This is their home because here it expresses possession. Polish, a highly inflected language, has an extensive system of such changes, which nouns and adjectives undergo in addition to pronouns. Most of the case-inflected words presented so far have been in the NOMINATIVE case because that is the case of the subject of the sentence, for example, in Basia jest tu (Barb is here), and of the predicate adjective, for example, in Jej sukienka jest ładna (Her dress is pretty).

In Staś ma nowy rower (Stan has a new bicycle), nowy rower is in the ACCUSATIVE case, because it is the direct object of ma (has) and accusative is the normal case for the direct object of a verb. For masculine inanimate nouns like rower and the agreeing adjective, the accusative form happens to be the same as the nominative form, but for other classes of nouns the two case forms are different.

Using ma (has) and mam (I have), form questions on the pattern Czy pan/pani ma (noun)? and answer them Tak, mam (noun), using nouns which have an accusative form identical with the nominative. These include (1) masculine nouns denoting inanimate objects, (2) neuter nouns, (3) feminine nouns ending in a consonant in the nominative singular, and (4) plural nouns which do not denote male persons. Also, form questions on the pattern Jaki/jaka/jakie pan/pani ma (noun)? (What kind of [noun] do you have?) and Czyj/czyja/czyje pan/pani ma (noun)? (Whose [noun] do you have?) and answer them.

Express in Polish. 1. I have a cheap pen. 2. Stan has an old car. 3.What sort of apartment does Ania have? -- A nice (one). 4. Do you (ma'am) have a cheap comb? 5. Do you (sir) have my glasses? 6. Who has our table? 7. Whose money do I have? 8. She has a small child. 9. I don't know whose key I have. 10 Does your sister have a Polish car?

4. Case and word order. In English, Who loves him? is grammatical but *Him loves who? is not. In Polish, Kto kocha jego? (Who loves him?) is grammatical and Jego kocha kto? (Who is it that loves him? or Who is he loved by?) is also grammatical. Here is a major difference between Polish and English, which consists in the following:

First, the information in a Polish sentence is normally structured with the TOPIC (what is being talked about) preceding and the COMMENT (what is being communicated about the topic) following.

Second, in Polish the subject of the sentence is in the nominative case and the direct object is in the accusative case.

Therefore, because it is marked by accusative case form, the direct object when it is the topic of the sentence can precede the subject of the sentence and still be understood as the direct object.

Note that this is not the case in English. In *Him loves who? the form of him and who should suffice to mark these pronouns as the object and subject of the sentence respectively. But they don't and the sentence is ungrammatical.

Here is a schematic representation of four Polish sentences involving Barb and Stan and the love relationship.

	TOPIC		COMMENT	TOPIC		COMMENT
NOMINATIVE	Basia		Staś	Staś		Basia
		kocha			kocha
ACCUSATIVE	Basię		Stasia	Stasia		Basię

Reading from top left to bottom right we get Basia kocha Stasia (Barb loves Stan) and Staś kocha Basię (Stan loves Barb). Reading from bottom left to top right, we get Basię kocha Staś (It's Stan that loves Barb) and Stasia kocha Basia (It's Barb that loves Stan). The four sentences differ in their information structure and answer different questions. The question Kogo kocha Basia? calls for an answer in which Barb's loving someone is the topic and the object of her love is the comment, thus Basia kocha Stasia. (The one-word answer Stasia is equally appropriate.) With Kogo kocha Staś? it is Stan's loving someone that is the topic, so the response is Staś kocha Basię (or simply Basię). On the other hand, the questions Kto kocha Basię? and Kto kocha Stasia? make the object of "loves" the topic of the response so that the comment is the subject of "loves", respectively Basię kocha Staś (or simply Staś) and Stasia kocha Basia (or simply Basia).

In English with its more rigid word order it is impossible to respond to Who loves Barb? with *Barb loves Stan, putting the direct object before the subject.

Arranging kocha (loves), nominative Staś and Basia and accusative Stasia and Basię for the proper emphasis, express: 1. It's Stan that loves Barb. 2. Stan is the one Barb loves. 3. Barb really [bardzo] loves Stan. 4. It's Barb that Stan loves. 5. Stan is loved by Barb.

Express in Polish. 1. Are you waiting for Barb? 2. Barb and (i) Stan have a child. 3. What are you reading? -- A book. 4. I don't know if Danuta loves Poland. 5. We don't remember if Stan has a car. 6. Does your grandmother remember me? 7. I know it's Barb that is waiting for George. 8. The Polish student is reading Shakespeare. 9. I love this old town. 10. Please repeat this Polish sentence.

5. Accusative forms of nouns. Although for several classes of nouns--masculine inanimate stół, neuter dziecko, feminine consonant-final rzecz, and other than male-personal plural drzwi--the accusative form is the same as the nominative, nouns of other classes have an accusative form that is distinct from the nominative. Thus:

° Nouns with nominative singular in -a have -ę in the accusative. For example: książka > książkę, sukienka > sukienkę, kolega > kolegę. Note that this applies not only to feminine nouns like książka but also to masculine nouns like kolega. Since nouns of this class are sometimes feminine, sometimes masculine, we refer to them as 2ND-DECLENSION nouns.

Pani has the exceptional accusative form panią.

° Masculine nouns which denote ANIMATE beings--except 2nd-declension nouns like kolega and Kościuszko--take the accusative singular ending -a: pan > pana, Staś > Stasia, student > studenta, Jurek (George) > Jurka, pies (dog) > psa.

The accusative form of państwo (ladies and gentlemen) is państwa.

Express in Polish. 1. I'm waiting for a friend. 2. Stan very (much) loves (his) aunt. 3. We're reading a newspaper. 4. Do you remember the teacher? 5. George has a brother and a sister. 6. Does this dog have a master? - No, but (ale) it has a mistress. 7. Jadwiga remembers (her) mother. 8. Mr. Soski is waiting for you (folks). 9. He loves you (ma'am). 10. Excuse me, do you really love (your) mother and father?

6. Accusative forms of adjectives and pronouns.

Adjectives agreeing with feminine nouns in the accusative singular end in -ą: ciekawą książkę, ładną sukienkę, małą rzecz, długą powieść. Pronouns take this ending too--moją matkę, czyją gazetę--with one exception: the accusative of ta is tę (at least in writing; in speaking one normally says "t

").

Adjectives agreeing with masculine nouns denoting animate beings take the ending -ego: dobrego ojca, polskiego kolegę, dużego psa. So do pronouns: mojego brata, tego gościa.

Note that pronoun and adjective agreement is by gender, not by declension class. Nouns like rzecz do not have -a in the nominative or -ę in the accusative because they belong to the 3rd declension. Nevertheless they are feminine and therefore we have nominative mała rzecz and accusative małą rzecz with the expected adjective forms. Nouns like kolega have the nominative ending -a and the accusative ending -ę because they belong to the 2nd declension. Nevertheless it is an animate masculine noun and therefore we have nominative mój kolega and accusative mojego kolegę.

7. Personal pronouns have these forms:

NOMINATIVE		kto	co	ja	ty	my	wy	--
ACCUSATIVE		kogo	co	mnie	ciebie/cię	nas	was	siebie/się

Siebie is the reflexive personal pronoun; it refers back to the subject of the sentence. For example: Znam siebie (I know myself), Czy panowie się znają? (Have you gentlemen met?, literally, Do you know one another?), Danuta kocha tylko siebie (Danuta loves only herself).

Cię and się are the unaccented (enclitic) forms or ciebie and siebie. We say Znam cię (I know you) when the accent is on "know" rather than on "you". But in Znam ciebie, ale nie znam twojego brata "you" accented in contrast to "your brother", so the long form is used. Unaccented (enclitic) pronouns cannot stand first in the sentence or clause. We may say Bardzo cię kocham, but without "very" it can only be Kocham cię. Enclitic pronouns may not follow a preposition. We say Znam cię but Czekam na ciebie.

A preposition and its pronoun object are accented as a single word. We say Czekam na ciebie but Czekasz na mnie, where both na ciebie and na mnie accented on the next-to-last syllable, as are czekam and czekamy.

8. Third-person pronouns in the accusative form take the regular adjective endings, but the stem on- is replaced with the stem j-. Thus:

NOMINATIVE		on	ono	ona	oni	one
ACCUSATIVE		jego/go	je	ją	ich	je

Go is the enclitic form of jego. We say Jego nie kocham (Him I don't love) but Nie kocham go (I don't love him).

8.1 When a 3rd-person pronoun is the object of a preposition, it begins with n. Thus do + jego is no niego (to him), o + ją is o nią (for her), na + ich is na nich (for them), za + je is za nie (for them), and so on. Note the next-to-last accent: do niego but na nie.

Insert n only when the pronoun is the object of the preposition. In phrases like do jego domu (to his house) and dla ich dzieci (for their children), the possessive pronoun is not the object of the preposition and is not preceded by n.

In the following sentences switch subject and object changing endings as needed. 1. Ania kocha Jurka. 2. Siostra ma męża. 3. Gość ma psa. 4. Krystyna i Zbigniew kochają swoją matkę. 5. Wy mnie pamiętacie. 6. Danuta czeka na naszego nauczyciela. 7. Mój kolega zna tego pana. 8. Na kogo państwo czekają? 9. On ją kocha, ale czy ona jego kocha? 10. Czy pani pamięta Stasia Kowalskiego? 11. Ojciec pamięta panią ale nie pani brata. 12. Czy mnie kochasz? 13. Czekamy na nich. 14. Kto czeka na nie? 15. Pana nie znam.

Respond to "Here comes ..." with the question, "Do you know him/her/them?" The answer is "Of course I know him/her/them, I know ... ". "Comes" (singular subject) is idzie; "come" (plural subject) is idą. For example, Tu idzie mój ojciec; czy go znasz? -- Oczywiście go znam, znam twojego ojca. (In 5, 6, and 7 use the pronoun in parentheses only in the last answer.)

1. moja matka 2. nasz kolega 3. wasza koleżanka 4. Basia i Jurek 5. (ta) ładna dziewczyna 6. (ten) stary profesor 7. (to) polskie dziecko 8. Jadwiga Łempicka 9. Stanisław Turecki 10. Jan Paweł II [drugi], pierwszy polski papież

Vocabulary

ale but	kocham, kochasz love	panowie gentlemen
autobus bus	mam, masz have	państwo ladies and gentlemen
ciocia aunt	panie ladies	pies dog
czekam, czekasz wait	pamiętam, pamiętasz remember	rower bicycle
czytam, czytasz read