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Accusative plural - masculine Topic is solved

David680268
Germany

Accusative plural - masculine

Post by David680268 »

Hi all,

I am trying to get my head around Polish declensions. Knowing a bit of Russian, I believed myself cleverer than I actually am. After all, I already understand the difference between animate and inanimate words, right?
Then Duo had me translate "The children see cats." This would need accusative plural, and since "kot" is animate and masculine in Polish, I assumed that the accusative plural would be equal to the genitive plural, and the right answer should be "Dzieci widzą kotów."
This turns out to be wrong, and the correct answer is "Dzieci widzą koty."
After consulting my newly bought grammar book, I assume that the rule is like this: Accusative plural words that are masculine behave like genitive plural if they are persons (say, "Dzieci widzą professorów"), but are identical to the nominative case, but not persons (such as cats, hence "Dzieci widzą koty."). And animate words that are not persons only leave animals, or am I overlooking something?
It would be great if some of the native speakers could confirm, elaborate or correct this.

Olav
Norway

Re: Accusative plural - masculine

Post by Olav »

I believe Polish grammar is more complex than Russian. Am i right?

Żar
Poland

Re: Accusative plural - masculine

Post by Żar »

In the masculine singular, there is an animate-inanimate distinction.

“animate” mostly includes people and animals, but may also include some foods, technologies, brands… it has kind of become the default category for recent loan words and slang.

In the masculine plural, there is a completely different personal-nonpersonal distinction.

It’s basically about how human-like something seems, so Tolkien’s elves are definitely “personal” (NOM elfowie, ACC elfów), while some tiny fairies could be “nonpersonal” (NOM elfy, ACC elfy).

Interestingly in some old books you can see wolves once had a personal plural „wilcy”, but nowadays it’s just „wilki”…

Also, feminine nouns have no animacy distinctions whatsoever, unlike in Russian.

David680268
Germany

Re: Accusative plural - masculine

Post by David680268 »

Żar wrote: Mon Sep 19, 2022 8:41 pm

“animate” mostly includes people and animals, but may also include some foods, technologies, brands… it has kind of become the default category for recent loan words and slang.

Thank you for your help! I read somewhere about the tendency in colloquial Polish to use the animate category for new words. Interesting that you can confirm this.

Żar wrote: Mon Sep 19, 2022 8:41 pm

It’s basically about how human-like something seems, so Tolkien’s elves are definitely “personal” (NOM elfowie, ACC elfów), while some tiny fairies could be “nonpersonal” (NOM elfy, ACC elfy).

Interestingly in some old books you can see wolves once had a personal plural „wilcy”, but nowadays it’s just „wilki”…

This sounds like a lot of fun to learn. :lol:

Żar wrote: Mon Sep 19, 2022 8:41 pm

Also, feminine nouns have no animacy distinctions whatsoever, unlike in Russian.

If I am not entirely mistaken, the distinction between animate and inanimate nouns is only relevant for masculine nouns in Russian.

Żar
Poland

Re: Accusative plural - masculine

Post by Żar »

Feminine animate nouns like женщина, кошка have PL.ACC=PL.GEN in East Slavic (я вижу женщин), while West and South Slavic retain feminine PL.ACC=PL.NOM in all cases (widzę kobiety).

David680268
Germany

Re: Accusative plural - masculine

Post by David680268 »

Żar wrote: Mon Sep 26, 2022 9:05 pm

Feminine animate nouns like женщина, кошка have PL.ACC=PL.GEN in East Slavic (я вижу женщин), while West and South Slavic retain feminine PL.ACC=PL.NOM in all cases (widzę kobiety).

You are right, of course. I got confused. женщина has distinct genitive and accusative cases in the singular (женщины, женщину), but identical genitive plural and accusative plural forms (женщин). The inanimate feminine noun машина, for example, has the genitive/accusative pairs машины/машину (singular) and машин/машины (plural).

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