1. Accusative plural. For Other than male-personal noun phrases, the accusative plural forms are the same as the nominative plural forms. Compare Skąd przyszły te kobiety? (Where did these women come from--nominative case) and Kto zna te kobiety? (Who knows these women--accusative case). The only exception to this rule is for "they/them", where nominative One przyszły (They came--nominative) differs from Znamy je (We know them--accusative) (same ending but suppletive stems).

For male-personal noun phrases, the accusative plural forms are the same as the genitive plural forms. Compare Ci mężczyźni/oni przyszli (These men/they came--nominative) and Znamy tych mężczyzn/ich (We know these men/them--accusative [same form as genitive]).

Note that the accusative = genitive identity has a narrower scope in the plural than in the singular. In the singular it applies to all Animate Masculine nouns (except 2nd-declension nouns like kolega). In the plural it applies only to those animate masculine nouns that denote male persons.

2. Genitive plural. The gender distinction between Male-Personal and Other that we have in the nominative and accusative plural is neutralized in the genitive plural, as shown by the following forms of "they/them":

	M.-PERS.	OTHER
NOMINATIVE	oni	one
ACCUSATIVE	ich	je
GENITIVE	ich

2.1 For pronouns and adjectives the genitive plural ending is -ych, which shifts to -ich after k and g and phonetically soft consonants. Examples: dla tych mądrych dziewczyn, dla polskich studentów, dla głupich.

2.2 Nouns in the genitive plural as a rule have an ending which contrasts with the ending they have in the nominative singular. Thus nouns which have an vowel ending in the nominative singular tend to have a zero ending in the genitive plural, and nouns which have a zero ending in the nominative singular mostly have a vowel ending in the genitive plural. Examples:

Nom. sg. -V ~ Gen. pl. -Ø		Nom. sg. -Ø ~ Gen. pl. -V
pani	pań	pan	panów
mapa	map	grzebień	grzebieni
pióro	piór	rzecz	rzeczy

2.3 Nouns take in the genitive plural take three endings: -i/-y, -ów, and -Ø (zero).

2.31 -i/-y occurs only with nonbasic stem consonants. All feminine nouns with a zero ending in the nominative singular take it: tych powieści, wiele rzeczy (many things). It also occurs with many other nouns with nonbasic stem consonants: dużo pieniędzy (note shift of ą to ę), pięciu nauczycieli (five teachers), dla naszych dzieci, grupa ludzi (a group of people).

Respond to Czy będą ...? with Niestety nie będzie ... for the following phrases containing nouns with stems in nonbasic consonants. 1. angielscy goście 2. pieniądze (ą > ę) 3. francuzkie powieści 4. długie noce 5. mądre decyzje 6. ładne rzeczy 7. duże drzwi 8. dobre konstytucje 9. tanie grzebienie 10. klucze do tego pokoju

2.32 -ów occurs with masculine nouns with stems ending in a basic consonant: stół > stołów, pies > psów, kolega > kolegów. It also occurs with some masculine nouns with stems ending in a nonbasic consonant, including nouns with nom. pl. -owie (mąż > mężów, Staś > Stasiów) and nouns with stems in -c (chłopiec > chłopców, palec > palców).

Respond to Gdzie są ...? with Nie widzę ... for the following phrases containing nouns which take gen. pl. -ów. 1. nowi studenci 2. tanie okulary 3. listy dla mnie 4. ciekawe filmy 5. mądrzy profesorowie 6. dobrzy koledzy 7. autobusy pośpieszne 8. młodzi chłopcy 9. nowe muzea 10. nasi rodzice (our parents)

2.33 -Ø occurs with nouns which have a non-zero ending in the nominative singular form: ta osoba > tych osób, jedna książka > pięć książek, to okno > z tych okien, wasze mieszkanie > do waszych mieszkań.

2.4 Stem alternations. Genitive plural -Ø;, similarly as nominative singular -Ø;, sometimes conditions a change in the stem . The most common is the appearance of fleeting e: matka > matek, krzesło > krzeseł. (Compare the disappearance of fleeting e in ołówek > ołówka.)

An o in the stem often changes to ó: siostra > sióstr. Less often, ę changes to ą: ręka (hand) > rąk.

Respond to Tu są ... with Nie chcemy ... for the following phrases containing nouns which take gen. pl. -Ø. 1. polskie gazety 2. białe sukienki 3. mapy Polski 4. włoskie (Italian) skrzypce 5. wygodne (comfortable) krzesła 6. szerokie (broad) ulice 7. młodzi mężczyźni 8. nowe kina 9. niemieckie (German) pióra 10. francuzkie wina (wines)

2.5 Nouns with nonbasic stem consonants sometimes take more than one genitive plural ending.

Soft-stem masculine nouns favor the -i/-y ending (nauczycieli, pisarzy, hoteli), but a fair number admit also -ów: pisarzów, hotelów.

Feminine and neuter nouns regularly take the -Ø ending (babcia > babć, zdanie > zdań), but when the stem ends in consonant cluster the last member of which is nonbasic, the -i/-y ending becomes an option and is sometimes favored because it obviates fleeting e insertion or a difficult consonant cluster. Thus kuchnia (kitchen) and kawiarnia (coffeehouse) in the genitive plural can be kuchen and kawiarń, but more commonly they are kuchni and kawiarni.

There is a tendency to avoid radical transformations in the stem during inflection. For msza (Mass) a -Ø ending would necessitate inserting e, so the genitive plural form is mszy. For ćma (moth) with its basic stem-final consonant, -i/-y is not an option, so the genitive plural form is ciem. For zło (evil), the -Ø ending would result in zeł, so wiele zła (much evil) is preferred over wiele zeł (many evils).

For the following verbs and nouns, form the question, "Did you [verb] all the [noun]s?", and respond, "No, I [verb]ed only one of (z) the [noun]s". Vary the tense. 1. odpowiedzieć na list 2. zobaczyć włoski film 3. kochać dziecko 4. przeczytać powieść 5. spotkać (meet) kolegę 6. pamiętać swojego nauczyciela 7. zapłacić za bilet (ticket) 8. być w polskim mieście 9. wziąć plecak (backpack) 10. zrozumieć pytanie (question)

Vocabulary

biały white	odpowiedzieć answer	wiele much, many
bilet -u ticket	pytanie question	wino wine
kawiarnia coffeehouse	ręka hand	włoski Italian
kuchnia kitchen	rodzice parents	wygodny comfortable
msza Mass	spotkać meet	zło evil