Poor Edward 10 | 154 8 Aug 2008 / #1Why do al girls names in Polish end in "A"? I asked this question today and I was told its because its the way the language works. Can anyone elaborate on this?
krysia 23 | 3,058 8 Aug 2008 / #2Because that's the way it is.Most feminine objects end with an "a" also, example:ta kapustata sukienkata wodaMasculine objects end on any letter they want:ten samochódten butten talerzThen there are these neutral dudes that end with an "o":to krzesłoto masłoto piwo
Magdalena 3 | 1,837 9 Aug 2008 / #3any letter they wantany consonant they want, I'd add. There are some masculine nouns ending in vowels, like "poeta" for example, but these are of obviously foreign origin, or meant to be funny - like "wierszokleta" for example ;-)
Magdalena 3 | 1,837 9 Aug 2008 / #5kolega, dentysta, specjalista are all non-Polish in origin.Mężczyzna, on the other hand, is rather strange in this respect, as it is a Slavonic word, and its meaning is 100% masculine, yet it ends in -a... Weird. Hadn't thought of it earlier. ;-)
dziadek 3 | 64 9 Aug 2008 / #6Kuba (Jakub, James), i think is the only Masculine name that ends with 'a'.and it's my name btw.
Switezianka - | 463 10 Aug 2008 / #7Can anyone elaborate on this?In Polish "a" is feminine gender marker (in singular nominative) just like "s" in English is a plural marker for nouns. And female names in Polish are always in feminine grammatical gender.
OP Poor Edward 10 | 154 10 Aug 2008 / #8in singular nominativeThank you so much for a consise and understandable reply. However what does the above mean exactly?
Switezianka - | 463 11 Aug 2008 / #9I'll explain you on examples:a cat - singularcats - plurala child - singularchildren - pluralWhen you talk about one thing, it's singular, if more than one, it's plural..Nominative case is the form of the noun that is used when this noun is the subject of the sentence. You have something similar in English pronouns, e.g. you've got the pronoun "he" in three forms: he, him, his. 'He' is the subjective case form, 'his' is genitive or possesive case form and 'him' is objective case form. Now, each Polish noun, nominal pronoun or adjectives has 7 forms (called cases). Nominal case form is the basic form of the word, so when you ask someone about the name, they will tell it to you in this case.