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Slavic philology ... | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Vlad Trilingual Super Polyglot Senior Member Czechoslovakia foreverastudent.com Joined 6584 days ago 443 posts - 576 votes  2 sounds Speaks: Czech*, Slovak*, Hungarian*, Mandarin, EnglishC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Serbian, French Studies: Persian, Taiwanese, Romanian, Portuguese | Message 17 of 36 28 June 2008 at 1:26am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I don't know how frequent this is in Polish and how often it can be used the other way around, but '1.Noun 2.Adjective' constructions can be used in Slovak and Czech as well, especially in names of events, places or botanical terms for instance(which just came into mind right now..there are probably more cases). We also use this, when we want to emphasize something. But it is not that frequent, you are right. Anyways, I am not an expert, but these are the quick examples I could think of:
Names: 1.Slovak 2.Czech 3.English 1.Doba ľadová/bronzová/železná.. 2.Doba ledová/bronzová/železná.. 3.Ice age, Bronze age, Iron age.. 1.Smrekovec opadavý - Larix decidua :-) Emphasis: 1.Nie je to poslendá strana, ale strana prvá, na ktorej sa to píše. 2.Není to poslední strana, ale strana první na které se to píše. 3.It is not the last page where it is written, it is the first page. Under some circumstances, I can imagine a lot of other Adjective/Noun constructions said the other way around, but it is very rare. p.s.: it was quite difficult to come up even with these few examples, so I guess it really is rare:-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7156 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 18 of 36 28 June 2008 at 1:48am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Polish is the only Slavonic language that I know where I must be careful about the sequence of nouns and adjectives.
The idea in Polish is that the adjective follows the noun if talking about an intrinsic trait. Otherwise, the noun follows the adjective. - pociąg osobowy = train personal ~ "passenger train" (this is a specific train that makes stops at every station (it does the milk run) and whose carriages don't have compartments that have room for 6-8 people as you would see on "fast" or Intercity trains. - pociąg pospieszny = train speeded-up ~ "fast passenger train" (this is a specific train that makes stops only in towns or cities and rarely stops at a village's station. Its carriages often have compartments that have room for 6-8 people.) - czerwony pociąg = red train (the colour of a train isn't an intrinsic quality) BUT I know of a case where both sequences are acceptable and a matter of the user's preference. urodzinowa impreza = birthdayish party ~ "birthday party" impreza urodzinowa = party birthdayish ~ "birthday party" It seems that Poles aren't sure whether "birthday" should or shouldn't act as an intrinsic descriptor of a party. All of the other Slavonic languages that I have encountered often rely on adjective + noun as I'm used to in English. I've seen those Czech and Slovak examples that Vlad put down, but indeed they are infrequent. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ElfoEscuro Diglot Senior Member United States cyworld.com/brahmapu Joined 6289 days ago 408 posts - 423 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English* Studies: Japanese | Message 19 of 36 28 June 2008 at 5:14pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Wow, it seems Polish is the tricky one...
You forgot the Czech. I think it's <modřín opadavý> 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Vlad Trilingual Super Polyglot Senior Member Czechoslovakia foreverastudent.com Joined 6584 days ago 443 posts - 576 votes 2 sounds Speaks: Czech*, Slovak*, Hungarian*, Mandarin, EnglishC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Serbian, French Studies: Persian, Taiwanese, Romanian, Portuguese | Message 20 of 36 29 June 2008 at 2:48am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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ElfoEscuro:
Do you want to convince me, that you knew how to say this word in Czech:-) I'd rate you among the most intelligent people in the world. I only wrote the word in Slovak, because it was the first one that came into my mind. Since I didn't know how to explain it in English, I googled it and found the Latin name and thought everyone else could google it too, just to know what I was talking about. I admit that I didn't know how to say it in Czech, but I wonder how many Czech's would. Iversen once wrote that there is allways room to expand one's native vocabulary and he specifically said that maybe one day he will learn all the names for the plants he has in his garden in Danish (native) just for this purpouse.. so there we go. But as far as the topic goes, I wanted to ask, what languages influenced the development of Polish. It has a lot of sounds that to my knowlege are not present in other Slavonic languages and has some grammar patterns that are to me more complicated than Czech, which in turn is more complicated than Slovak. Edited by Vlad on 29 June 2008 at 2:56am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ElfoEscuro Diglot Senior Member United States cyworld.com/brahmapu Joined 6289 days ago 408 posts - 423 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English* Studies: Japanese | Message 21 of 36 29 June 2008 at 4:59pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Nay, I did not know it. My Czech is not that good! I had to look it up. That tree is also known as "European larch" or <modřín evropský> in Czech.
As far as I know, Polish has been influenced by Latin, Italian, French, German, Hungarian, & Turkish. Mostly in vocabulary, though. I'm guessing Latin is the main "culprit" since it was the sole official written language of the Kingdom of Poland for many years. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Russianbear Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6775 days ago 358 posts - 422 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, Ukrainian Studies: Spanish | Message 22 of 36 30 June 2008 at 2:48pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I think you can say it either way in Russian, but 1. Adjective 2. Noun is probably by far the most popular way. But there is no distinction between intrinsic and non-intrinsic qualities (that Chung mentioned Polish had) in Russian. Edited by Russianbear on 30 June 2008 at 2:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| peterlin Tetraglot Groupie Poland peterlin.jzn.pl Joined 6415 days ago 54 posts - 58 votes Speaks: Polish*, Persian, English, Russian | Message 23 of 36 01 July 2008 at 6:57am | IP Logged | ||||||||
A very astute observation, I must say. Myself, I used to think that "adj + noun" is a mere description, "noun + adj" is a trademark, a set expression.
True, again. But the two phrases are not 100% equivalent. Or rather, they don't "feel" the same to me, even if, at the moment, I can't think up any context in which one of them would be acceptable and the other one not.
I think there's no need of saying this, as you sure know all about it, but will say it anyway: It's not a matter of "being sure" about some qualities being intrinsic or not. We don't think about it at all. Ok, so the language geeks among us, might. However, your average Polish speaker is not even aware that sometimes adjectives precede nouns and sometimes they don't, unless you point it out to them. And if you do, they won't be able to explain. All that "intrinsic descriptor" talk belongs to a discourse level linguistically aware foreigners operate on. We, noble but savage natives, are blissfully unaware of it. We just know, feel, hear, what sounds right (or weird, or funny) and what doesn't. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| peterlin Tetraglot Groupie Poland peterlin.jzn.pl Joined 6415 days ago 54 posts - 58 votes Speaks: Polish*, Persian, English, Russian | Message 24 of 36 01 July 2008 at 7:14am | IP Logged | ||||||||
What, no English? :) Seriously, a few remarks: 1. You forgot (or didn't want to include) the influence of other Slavic langs, most notably Russian and Czech. The former, you can guess, the latter was quite influential in shaping literary Polish in its beginnings (plus, you can blame our orthography on it). 2. German(ic) influence is easy to underestimate, as these loans were not as highbrow as Latinate ones and thus in many cases have successfully hidden their real origins (ie. most native speaker think of them as native Polish words). 3. Italian, Hungarian and Turkish don't really play in the same league as the rest. 4. XVI-XVIIth century Polish was full of macaronisms (Latin words and phrases inserted in the middle of otherwise Polish text) adn its syntax was stretched to fit classical Latin's. I'm talking about preferrence for verb-final clauses, stuff like that.I suspect that even nowadays it would not be hard to find Latin influence in Polish syntax. 5. There are some common expressions and turns of phrase calqued from Russian. These are the ones prescriptive grammarians detest the most. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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