Declension of town names in prepositional phrases in Polish

I have difficulty learning the system for modifying names of Polish towns that refer to a thing in the town. i.e.

A church in Nieborów (kosciół w Nieborowie)
A shop in Lewiczyn (sklep w Lewiczinie)
A palace in Warszawa (pałac w Warszawie)
A street in Siedlce (ulica w Siedlcach)
A house in Paprotnia (dom w Paprotni) Paprotnie?
A school in Nowy Ręczaje (szkoła w Ręczajach Nowych)

Proszę pomóc

It's the locative case (miejscownik) of the place name.

A church in Nieborów (kosciół w Nieborowie)
A shop in Lewiczyn (sklep w Lewiczinie) w Lewiczynie
A palace in Warszawa (pałac w Warszawie)
A street in Siedlce (ulica w Siedlcach)
A house in Paprotnia (dom w Paprotni) Paprotnie? w Paprotni; "w Paprotnie" would be correct if the name were Paprotno
A school in Nowy Ręczaje (szkoła w Ręczajach Nowych) w Nowych Ręczajach - why change the order?
also, I think that should be Nowe Ręczaje

Some place names are tricky and problematic even for the natives.

As for Nowy Ręczaje, that's the way it was spelled in a photo caption that appears on panoramio.com.

I like to browse images of Poland on this site, some of the photos were taken early in the morning before the mist has evaporated, which gives a rather ethereal effect.

this one? panoramio.com/photo/18891399

yes, it's a nice picture. Unfortunately, the commentary under says that the shrine doesn't exist anymore; it has been taken down. Shame.

The map says Nowe Ręczaje. Looks like the author of the picture unwittingly changed the order of the words.

Hooray! I just found a webpage that lists many town names and in the text, they are printed in the locative case. The URL is: lodzkie.travel

Now, maybe I can figure out the mechanics of Polish locative nouns.

Dzięki za wasz pomoc dobrolitwy.
DFD

As a rule, nouns with stems ending in any of the following letters have "-ie" endings with no modifications:

B, F, M, N, P, S, W, Z:

£aba -> £abie (Elbe)
Strefa -> Strefie (Zone)
Prom -> Promie (ferry)
Zmiana -> Zmianie (change)
Mapa -> Mapie (map)
Los -> Losie (fate, destiny, outcome, chance)
Warszawa -> Warszawie (Warsaw)
Waza -> Wazie (tureen)

Nouns ending in any of the letters below, also have -ie-ending, but with some modifications:

D, T:

Wada -> Wadzie (flaw, fault)
Blata -> Blacie (tabletop, counter)

The following have endings in "-e" with various modifications. These are:

CHA, GA, KA, £, R:

Blacha -> Blasze (metal plate)
Ulga -> Uldze (relief)
Ameryka -> Ameryce (America)
Upał -> Upale (heat, hot weather)
Lustro -> Lustrze (mirror)

Words with stems ending in the following have locative endings in -u without modifications (with the exception of feminine nouns ending in -cha, -ga and -ka):

C, G, CH, J, K, L, Ż, CZ, RZ, SZ:

Koc -> Kocu (blanket)
Waga -> Wagu (scales)
Dach -> Dachu (roof)
Kraj -> Kraju (country)
Szok -> Szoku (shock)
Stal -> Stalu (steel)
Wąż -> Wężu (snake) (notice also how ą turns into ę)
Mecz -> Meczu (match)
Powietrze -> Powietrzu (air)
Kosz -> Koszu (basket)

Nouns with stems ending in either of the following have modified -u-endings:

Ć, Ń, Ś, -, ŚĆ:

£okieć -> £okciu (elbow) (note that the e disappears)
Cień -> Cieniu (shadow, shade)
Struś -> Strusiu (ostrich)
Niedźwiedź -> Niedźwiedziu (bear)

There are several other types of declensions too, but I ran out of time. I guess I should have separated them by gender too, since some of the stem endings differ with gender.

Thanks Derevon!

Here are some tricky town names for Muciswriter to decline in the locative case:

A street in Limanowa (ulica w ....................).
A house in Włoszczowa (dom we ....................).
A church in Ostrów Wielkopolski (kościół w .......................).
A church in Ostrów Mazowiecka (kościół w .......................).
A palace in Wrocław (pałac we .........................).

For checking and comment by Derevon (who in my opinion is really good at the declension of name endings).

Thanks. ;) I live in Wrocław, so the last one is easy for me, and I would guess the first and/or the second might be declined as an adjective. As for "Ostrów Mazowiecka", I'm quite confused. What does Mazowiecka agree with?

Though it is easy, you may have noticed that Wrocław does not fit the rule you indicate; the name of the city ends in -w, so it should decline: we Wrocławie, but it doesn't. Any thoughts on that?

[Very few of the native speakers of Polish will tell you the explanation for it, but they are, of course, welcome to do it.]

For some reason the stem ending of "Wrocław" is soft, even though it's not visible from the nominative form. Therefore it's conjugated as a noun with soft ending (-iu). It's the same things as with żółw. As to why these words have soft endings, I have absolutely no idea though.

I am truly amazed at your ability to conceive the right answer without having prior knowledge of the history of the language. Indeed, the final -w in Wrocław was pronounced as a soft w until the end of the 18-th century (the soft w, for example, still exists in Russian to this day). Hence, the ending in "Wrocław' / we Wrocławiu", just the same as in "Toruń / w Toruniu".

it's Waga -> Wadze waga is feminine (note a in the end)

Wag - Wagu - Wag is a river in Slovakia and the name is masculine (same in Polish and in Slovak) - they call it Wah we call it Wag

so you get tama na Wagu - a dam on Wah (looks interesting in English, ain't it ;)

Gumishu: Oops. That's right.

Ziemowit: That makes sense. Wrocław had a lot of different names over the years I've heard.

The locative is in my opinion (by far) the most difficult case. Probably because we often also have a change in the end of the stem.

Ulica w Limonowej
Dom we Włoszczowej
Kościoł w Ostrowej Wielkopolskach
Kościoł w Ostrowej Mazowiecach
Pałac we Wrocławiu

kościół w Ostrowie Wielkopolskim
Ostrów Wielkopolski is masculine


kościół w Ostrowi Mazowieckiej
Ostrów Mazowiecka is feminine.


we Włoszczowie

I can't post direct links but you may check official sites at triple w powiatostrowmaz . pl ; triple w ostrow-wielkopolski . um . gov . pl and triple w gmina-wloszczowa . pl

It did. But what I am trying to tell there is that the Polish name of the city in the 18th century was the same as today, only the final w in it was pronounced softly of which the traces remain in the declension of the name.


The PWN Dictionary of Polish (Słownik poprawnej polszczyzny PWN) of 1973 and 1981 by Witold Doroszewski as well as "Poradnik językowy. Podręcznik dla pracowników prasy, radia i telewizji" of 1969 recommended the forms: do Włoszczowej, we Włoszczowej (adjectival type, like in: w Istebnej, w Limanowej, w Kolbuszowej). It was later decided in the official "Wykaz urzędowych nazw miejscowości w Polsce (vol. 1-3)" of 1982 that the name should be declined according to the noun type of declention (like in: w Kudowie, w Jabłonnie, we Wschowie). The latter is in agreement with the pattern of declention being used locally, so it should indeed be:

do Włoszczowy, we Włoszczowie;

though quite a number of people in Poland (me included) are still used to the former, adjectival pattern of its declension.

Excuse me, but Nieborów is famous for its aristocratic palace, not church. I have always read and heard: Pałac w Nieborowie, pałac w Nieborowie etc

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The school still operates. Amazing:

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If you are interested in purchasing this facility, here is the sale offer which I have just found: In English!
homla.pl/ogloszenie/5580394-lokale-uslugowo-handlowe-sprzedaz--lewiczyn

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