Polish/Feminine noun declension

< Hard and soft consonants < ^ Polish ^ > Masculine noun declension >

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Feminine noun declension

The declension of nouns in Polish is less regular than of adjectives, but follows a pattern that is in many ways similar to adjective declension.

Let's take a look at a few typical feminine declension nouns in singular and are equal to nominative in plural):

	Girl (also Girlfriend)		Woman		Ant		Coffee		Cow		Kasia (Katie)
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	dziewczyna	dziewczyny	kobieta	kobiety	mrówka	mrówki	kawa	kawy	krowa	krowy	Kasia	Kasie
Accusative	dziewczynę		kobietę		mrówkę		kawę		krowę		Kasię
Vocative	dziewczyno		kobieto		mrówko		kawo		krowo		Kasiu
Genitive	dziewczyny	dziewczyn	kobiety	kobiet	mrówki	mrówek	kawy	kaw	krowy	krów	Kasi	Kaś
Dative	dziewczynie	dziewczynom	kobiecie	kobietom	mrówce	mrówkom	kawie	kawom	krowie	krowom	Kasi	Kasiom
Locative		dziewczynach		kobietach		mrówkach		kawach		krowach		Kasiach
Instrumental	dziewczyną	dziewczynami	kobietą	kobietami	mrówką	mrówkami	kawą	kawami	krową	krowami	Kasią	Kasiami

As you can see it's quite regular. Possible changes are:

• softening of final consonant group in the singular dative and locative (which have the same form)
• change of "o" to "ó" (pronounced /u/) in the plural genitive
• insertion of "e" between the two final consonants in the plural genitive. You may think of this "e" as a kind of aid to pronunciation. "mrówk" would be pretty hard to say without this "e". The Polish language allows quite complicated consonant groups at the beginning of a syllable, but it tries to avoid complex syllable endings.

These changes aren't specific to the feminine noun declension - they happen throughout the Polish language, so you'd better get used to them.

A bit less typical are feminine nouns that end in "-ia":

Comedy
	Singular	Plural
Nominative	komedia	komedie
Accusative	komedię
Vocative	komedio
Genitive	komedii	komedii
Dative		komediom
Locative		komediach
Instrumental	komedią	komediami

Notice that in the genitive and the accusative the pronunciation is the same in the singular and plural. This is not usual in Polish, and may cause some problems if number is not obvious from context. One solution is to overemphasise difference between "e" and "ę" in speech (which are usually pronounced the same at word endings). A better solution is to use some adjective or pronoun, for example:

• "tej komedii" (singular genitive, of this comedy)
• "tych komedii" (plural genitive, of these comedies)
• "tę komedię" (singular accusative, this comedy)
• "te komedie" (plural accusative, these comedies)

And abstract feminine nouns ending in "-ść" (note vocative forms):

	Love		Height
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nom./Acc.	miłość	miłości	wysokość	wysokości
Vocative	miłości		wysokości
Genitive
Dative		miłościom		wysokościom
Locative		miłościach		wysokościach
Instrumental	miłością	miłościami	wysokością	wysokościami

There is some magic here with "ść" changing to "śc" but it's only spelling. You never write the softened version of a consonant before a vowel - you change it to the "normal" version and add "i" to mark it as "soft". You don't have to add "i" if it's already there.

Without this magic endings would look like:

	Singular	Plural
Nominative		i
Accusative
Genitive	i
Dative		iom
Locative		iach
Instrumental	ią	iami

Let's try to use that knowledge in practice.

• Agnieszka myśli o miłości - Agnieszka thinks about love (love in locative)
• Agnieszka nie myśli o miłości - Agnieszka doesn't think about love (as above)
• Dziewczyny lubią komedie - The girls like comedies (comedies in accusative)
• Kobieta pije kawę - The woman is drinking coffee. (coffee in accusative)
• Dziewczyna nie pije kawy - The girl doesn't drink coffee (coffee in genitive)
• Basia nie widzi krów - Basia doesn't see cows (cows in genitive)
• Marta nie lubi mrówek - Marta doesn't like ants (ants in genitive)

• myśli - third person singular form of "to think"
• lubi - third person singular form of "to like"
• lubią - third person plural form of "to like"

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