The morphology of the Polish language is characterised by a fairly regular system of inflection (conjugation and declension) as well as word formation.
Certain regular or common alternations apply across the Polish morphological system, affecting word formation and inflection of various parts of speech.
Soft declensions are used when the stem of the noun ends in a soft (postalveolar or palatal-like) consonant in all forms, while hard declensions are used by nouns with stems ending in a hard consonant in some (but not necessarily all) forms.
The rest of the cases are different for 5 different declension groups:[1][2] The following table compares all five declension groups: Note also: Irregularities in masculine nouns: Feminine nouns usually end in -a, although a few end in -i.
The following table shows the feminine a-stem declension: The following table shows the feminine i-stem declension: Neuter nouns end in -o or -e, these are the hard and soft neuter "o-stems".
Notable irregular forms include the following: The following types of nouns are generally invariant, and do not inflect at all: Foreign personal names of males are declined if at all possible; some special rules are applied depending on the original language.
Those that end "-y" or "-i" generally follow the adjectival declension, but these are treated as -i, i.e. the previous consonant is soft, and this is shown in inflected written forms such as Tony'ego.
Irregular comparatives include lepiej ("better"), gorzej ("worse"), więcej ("more", also bardziej when not concerned with quantity, from bardzo "very"), mniej ("less").
The mixed-sex form państwo (which can also be used as a noun to refer to a mixed-sex group or couple) is masculine personal plural, but declines like the neuter noun państwo ("state, country") except that the accusative is państwa (like the genitive) and the locative państwu.
Possessive pronouns such as mój, twój, nasz, wasz are declined like adjectives (moja, moje etc.
Derived pronouns such as ktoś/coś, ktokolwiek/cokolwiek, and nikt/nic are declined similarly to kto and co, however nic has the unaltered (accusative) form instead of niczego when it is the object of a negated verb.
For information on formation and usage, see Numbers and quantifiers in the article on Polish grammar.
Collective numerals: Quantifiers: The lemma of a verb is the infinitive, which usually ends in -ć (occasionally -c).
together with the infinitive, or the past form (inflected for gender and number, but without any personal suffixes), of the verb in question.
zacznie(sz), imperative zacznij); or (if the present tense is in -a-) by adding -aj (e.g. śpiewać, pres.
To make third-person imperative sentences (including with the polite second-person pronouns pan etc.)