Polish grammar exercises from hell

Sorry, you are applying old and dated logic, Nomsense. I need to have 90 pairs of scissors (English meaning) to mean 45 par nożyczek. Only old people understand it like you did, LOL. Don't count the blades, count the item.

After having searched a bit in Google images for "pary nożyczek" I've reached the conclusion that most see "dwie pary" as two tools (my Polish gf included), although, there are a few discrepancies.

Seanus, you can laugh as much as you want but that's not going to change the fact that you're wrong.


That's exactly what I'm doing. 45 par nożyczek = 45 items.

[quote=sjp.pwn.pl/haslo.php?id=2498152para
przedmiot składający się z dwóch symetrycznych, złączonych części[/quote]
which translates to:


which is the same as:

I was disinformed. My fiancee (Polish) was the one that told me para nożyczek meant 2 pairs in the English meaning. The most basic of things which primary school students know seem beyond her.

I remember showing Japanese kids of 7 and 8 a picture of a pair of scissors and they would say scissors or a pair of scissors. Some said hasami :)

Unlike a Pole, I can admit I am wrong. I'm not part of the 'never wrong' club and, as a teacher, am very aware that I can learn from my students. I don't brag about some paper, probably got from cheating or a*s licking anyway, which means you are the God of everything.

After having done my own research, I can see that all the authorities say para nożyczek is one English pair. I can even say sorry for being wrong (and thank you for sb who holds a door open for me). Most here can't. So, sorry!!

Next grammar test:

Two pathetic buffoons, sitting on a bench in Poland, both talking and neither listening, suddenly break into an argument which gets heated and neither backs down. A native speaker comes along and suggests a compromise. Both Polaks look dumbfounded. What's that?

Translate that please :) ;)

Now, let's not jump to conclusions. You needed 3 people to convince you that you were wrong. And yes, you acted exactly like a stereotypic Pole ;P .

Am I admitted into the club now? ;) ;) It was NOT my opinion, I was arguing through her. Truth be told, I didn't know and asked her for her opinion which was wrong.

Here's the proof: obcyjezykpolski.interia.pl/?md=archive&id=375, para butów is 2 boots but para nożyczek is 1 pair of scissors. I'd like to read Miodka's opinion.

Yes, as a supporter ;-) .


I admire the passion with which you were defending her point of view, though (+10 to charisma).


Yes, and "2 buty" in Polish :> . "Para butów" would also be "a pair of boots" in English, wouldn't it?

That's my point, Nomsense. You have 2 items (2 single shoes) to make one pair when referring to shoes. You have one item to mean para nożyczek (2 blades but ONE tool).

Yes, I often took the weaker position in moots (legal debates). I liked the element of challenge as areas were not black and white. The same in chess, I would sometimes enter weaker positions and try to eke out an edge.

Yes, but that's exactly how it is in English, too.

Yes but you don't have 2 items (let's say scissors) to mean a pair of scissors. You have 1 item to mean a pair of scissors.

Exactly like in Polish. Really, Seanus, there is no difference here (maybe with some other words). "Nożyczki" are "one object composed of two joined, similar parts that are dependent upon each other", exactly like "scissors".

Well, where does my fiancee get her logic from?

A woman with logic? Pfffft!

This thing with "pair" goes for "szczypce", "sanie" etc as well? I suppose there are not all that many of these plural only, non-personal nouns that can't be paired. "Drzwi" and "skrzypce" are the only ones that I can think of. No wonder that even many native speakers have problems with these things. ;)

I think you are wrong here, Seanus. When I was reading some of your posts in this thread, it was the great compatriot of yours, the blessed Margaret Thatcher, subject of frequent mockery from her political opponents as well as satirists, who immediately came to my mind:

Margaret: I am not dogmatic! Everyone who says I am is wrong. And that's all there is to it !!!
You:


These two statements look almost identical. You admit that you are wrong only when you have no other choice. Even then, you attribute your being wrong to someone else, namely to your fiancée.

------
Ziemowit (imitating Mare Gaea here and thinking that teachers and politicians usually have difficulty in admitting they may be wrong)


For "szczypce" it does, for "sanie" it doesn't. "Sanie" is not a pair of two joint similar parts; they are symmetrical, but not two joint parts. The same applies to "drzwi" and "skrzypce". An ordinary Pole will usually find it difficult to decide which is correct: "siedem skrzypiec" or "siedmioro skrzypiec" (no wonder, they seldom see or play this istrument at home), but the music world where the object is well-known has no doubt about it. If you google for "skrzypiec", you will find, for example, official announcments of "koncert na dwoje/troje skrzypiec i fortepian", but never "na dwa/trzy skrzypce".

Another noun where you use "a pair of" is spodnie. You may say of trousers "spodnie or "para spodni" meaning one item; "trzy pary spodni" will indicate three items. Notice that in English the noun has only the plural form as well.

Thanks Ziemowit.

As for "sanie" I was a bit confused, becaused I seemed to get more hits for "dwie pary sań" than for "dwoje sań" in Google, but it turned out it was 82 for "dwoje sań" and 47 for "dwie pary sań". I guess people are bound to be confused about such things since it's not exactly every day you would say "two sleighs". ;)

Truth be known, Ziemowit, she did the tricky parts. She still maintains that she is right. It was her idea.

It would be very interesting to know what your great compatriots Dostojewsky or Tolstoj would have had to say on the matter ;) ;) Will Putin do? :) LOL

I must've lived here for too long, the rub-off effect.

Could anyone please tell me what the differences are in terms of semantics and/or style between these two sentences:

Nigdy nie znaleziono ich ciał
Ich ciała nigdy nie zostały znalezione

Also I don't quite get why "ciał" is in the genitive in the first sentence.

Thanks

Second one is more formal. But not by much.

In my opinion:
Nigdy nie znaleziono ich ciał. and Ich ciała nie zostały odnalezione.
Obie formy są poprawne. :)

Nigdy nie odnaleziono ich CIA£.
Słowo ciał zostało użyte jako określenie wielu zwłok.

Gdyby pierwsze zdanie było zapisane w formie:
|Nigdy nie odnaleziono ich ciała| byłoby to niepoprawnie gramatycznie ponieważ |ich|jest to liczba mnoga. A w Polsce Ciał i Ciała to liczba mnoga. Jednak niektóre zdanie muszą mieć formę drugą rzeczownika w liczbie mnogiej. :)

The first sentence construction feels a bit weird to me. The bodies were never found, and yet "bodies" is the object of the sentence. I wonder if it's possible to somehow translate it literally to English and still having "the bodies" to be the object of the sentence rather than subject, I mean in order for me to really understand the construction (it doesn't have to be idiomatic or anything). I suppose not.

The second one (with zostały) is a more or less pure passive.

The first is a construction unique to Polish (maybe something like it on some other Slavic languages but there's nothing like it in any western european language).

It's called an impersonal passive but it's not a true passive for two reasons:

1. the logical object stays in the object case (that's why it's ciał, the genitive plural after the negative verb). note that the logical object 'ich ciała' is in the nominative case in the second one.

2. there's no subject (and no subject is allowed in the sentence). For linguists, this is a fascinating construction as it violates a supposed 'universal' rule of syntax from the Chomsky school (that all sentences have to have recoverable subjects). But it doesn't have a recoverable subject (or a dummy subject or any other kind of subject).

Etymologically, the verb form here (called the -o form by some linguists) looks like predicate adverbial ending (-o) added to the past participle, but it seems to function as an inflected verb with the exception that it can't express agreement (since it has no subject).

Like I said, a perplexing and interesting construction, one of those things that make Polish endlessly fascinating.

Thanks mafketis. That was a very good explanation. I guess I should just try to think of it as an impersonal passive form to make sense of it and just try to remember that the object takes the genitive.

No. The object takes whatever normal case it would in a plain active sentence. As the direct object of a negative verb in your example, that's genitive, but if the verb governs a different case then that's what's used.

Znaleziono ich ciała (accusative - same as nominative in this example).

Zbudowano szkołę (acc - "a school was built")

Powiedziano mi, że .... (dative - "I was told, that ....")

Opiekowano się mną (instr. - "I was taken care of")

Ah, ok, thanks.

In the past there was one more grammatical number in Polish - dual, which referred to exactly two objects. You can see that in some sayings such as 'Mądrej głowie dość dwie słowie'.

And that is why we say 'dwoje drzwi' or 'dwoje skrzypiec'.

Aren't you mixing things up now? I know some present day Polish nouns have forms derived from the old dual number such as "ręce" and "rękoma", but I fail to see any connection to dwoje, troje, czworo drzwi/skrzypiec etc.

When looking up the word "przybywać" I ran into the following examples:

(rosnąć) increase:

przybyło nowych książek - we have more new books
przybyło mu lat - he is getting older
przybył mi jeden kilogram - I gained one kilogram
przybyło wody - water level has risen

These sentences really don't make any sense to me. Subjectless sentences again, but this time different? "Przybył" seems to agree with kilogram, but in the case with "wody" they use przybyło? I'm really confused now, so if anyone could shed some light on this I'd appreciate it.

if you insisted to say 'przybyła woda' you would get a different meaning - simply 'water has come/arrived' - which may refer to flooding for example

W Morskim Oku przybyło wody. (Morskie Oko is a lake in the Tatra mountains)
Water level in Morskie Oko increased.
Do Jeziora Solińskiego/zbiornika solińskiego przybyła już woda pochodząca z ostatnich roztopów. (zbiornik soliński is a dam reservoir in Bieszczady area)

Water(s) from the last thaw has already entered/arrived in Solina reservoir.

from previous examples you may have noticed (the examples you have given) that przybyło is associated with the plural (przybyło mu zmartwień) - seems like it is also associated with uncountable things/nouns (W magazynach Rezerw państwowych przybyło cukru. - There has been/was rise in the amount of sugar stored by the National Reserves)

(i) przybyło nowych książek - we have more new books
(ii) przybyło mu lat - he is getting older
(iii) przybył mi jeden kilogram - I gained one kilogram
(iv) przybyło wody - water level has risen

You are asking difficult questions, indeed ... At a glimpse, it can be observed that in the examples (i), (ii) and (iv) the nouns are in the genetive, whereas in (iii) the noun is in the nominative.

"Przybyło" does seem subjectless for the plural and for the "uncountables" like woda, though it doesn't for the singular: przybył mu jeden kilogram = jeden kilogram [subject] mu przybył.

Genitive after a verb and no subject? :S

Every time I think Polish can't get any more complicated, I discover something like this. ;)

Also, I think it's beyond my comprehension how "jeden kilogram" could possibly be the subject in the sentence above if it's supposed to mean something like "increase".

One kilogram was increased to him. :S :S

I'm starting to believe that some things about Polish grammar are best left ununderstood. One of these days I will develop cerebral haemorrhage from all this. ;)

Thanks for trying, though.