Dzwoniono / Czytano

Could you please give me some grammatical help what is Dzwoniono Czytano..etc? Dzwonili, czytali is not exactly the same right?
Thanks! Veronika

dzwoniono, czytano - are impersonal constructions reffering to the past (it says nothing about who was the doer - sometimes (but not always) it suggests that many people were doing that perhaps habitually) - historically it is a neuter (neuter gender) form of a passive adjectival participle (now the actual neuter form of a passive adjectival participle has a different ending (-e not -o)

Thank you for the detailed answer!


We don't understand this part. I have asked my Polish colleauge, she also doesn't understand what you mean by this. Dzwoniono is existing today, not Dzwonione.

Thanks!

yes dzwonione does not exist as a word in Polish but you add a prefix wy- and you get wydzwonione which your Polish friend should understand perfectly - wydzwoniono is also a word in Polish

the better pair to exemplify my point could perhaps be 'znano' and 'znane'

This is because passive adjectival participle requires a transitive verb. Dzwonić is not.

Cinek

Thanks! I don't understand yet, but try :)

Forms like czytano etc are impersonal forms with no real equivalent in any non-Slavic language that I know of. If you know some Finnish then the forms ending in -taan like puhutaan (was spoken, someone spoke) are semantically pretty similar. Nothing very close in Hungarian though.

Sometimes they are functionally like agentless passives in English: znaleziono ciało w parku = a body was found in the park

Grammatically they're not really passives the object remains in the object case (it doesn't become the subject of the sentence - the sentence can have no subject)

They're formed from the pasive participle with the ending -o which is adverbial. There used to be an distinction in some Slavic languages (and maybe modern Czech?) between adverbs that modified a verb or adjective ending in -(i)e like dobrze and ładnie and those that could be predicates which ended in -o like zimno, smutno. The distinction is lost in modern Polish but may have been in effect when these forms first arose.

You can also translate them mentally with 'someone X' though stylistically this will be odd for many examples....

Thank you!! It is clearer for me now.

transitive verb is one that can have a 'direct object' ;) dzwonić can't have one ;)

'direct object' in English is the object that binds with a verb without a preposition ;)

i'm pretty sure it is much different in Hungarian ;)

What about the sentence "Dzwonił palcami o szkło"? Wouldn't "palcami" be a direct object?

I don't think so - write the sentence in English and you will need a preposition (with his fingers) - I guess the 'direct object' in terms of Polish language needs to be in accusative (palcami is instrumental) or genetive (szukać, słuchać)

Polish wikipedia on 'dopełnienie bliższe' (more or less direct object)
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dope%C5%82nienie_bli%C5%BCsze

"Melodia była dzwoniona palcami o szkło."

To me this sounds a bit weird, but not incorrect. Hard to tell.

It looks to me like an adverbial complement describing an instrument.

But another reason for saying that -no / -to forms aren't true passives is that they can be used with intransitive verbs.

Jak tańczono przed wiekami.....


Examples from English are completely irrelevant for defining the internal categories of Polish.

I would provisionally say that direct objects in Polish can appear in up to four different cases.

accusative - mam samochód

genetive - szukam klucza

dative - ufam tobie

instrumental - pogardzę nim

I do find English direct object a very good approximant of Polish 'dopełnienie bliższe'

ufam tobie - I trust you

kieruję firmą - I run a firm kieruję wozem - I steer a cart/waggon

no prepositions

just a question, wouldn't 'na szkle' be correct as well?

'approximate' is the key word...

zadzwoniłem do ciebe = I called you. / I phoned you.

oops

Yeah this is why I have troubles because in Hungarian a lot of things are different than in Polish. If I would have learned German, it would be easier.

Thanks!

Not really. It's a vastly different language at the end of the day.


Yes, I think so.

So it turns out that dzwonić can be either transitive or not, depending on the context, and we can have e.g.:

Dwie melodie były dzwonione palcami o szkło.


shame on me :-(

Cinek

But not as fun!

szveronika,
As far as I understand, czytano is the same as "széles körben olvasott könyv" (a book read by a wide public), but it sounds too cheesy, so in common speech we just say without referring to a person/persons: "sokan olvassák" (lots of them read it). That's why you might mistake it for "czytali" (they have read it). :)

Being a beginner in Polish, I don't know if these "-no" forms have the same "cheesy" (too sophisticated) taste in Polish or they can be used everyday without sounding like a snob. :)

yes, they are pretty formal - you don't hear as a part of everyday speech actually