Genitive

Genitive: whose? / of what? - Dopełniacz: kogo? / czego?

Genitive case is used to express possession, or to specify something:

• possession, e.g. Konrad's ball: piłka Konrada.

• specification, e.g. the price of petrol: cena benzyny.

• when the direct object (who? what?) is denied: I have no money: nie mam pieniędzy.

• with certain verbs:
• - "to fear something": "bać się" e.g. I fear the exam: boję się egzaminu.
• - "to hate": "nienawidzić", e.g. I hate aliens: nienawidzę Obcych.
• - "to pay attention": "pilnować", e.g. when you drive pay attention to children!: kiedy prowadzisz pilnuj dzieci!
• - "to need (of)": "potrzebować", e.g. I need of a car: potrzebuję samochodu.
• - "to listen": "słuchać", e.g. I listen music: słucham muzyki.
• - "to look for/to search": "szukać", e.g. I am looking for my keys: szukam moich kluczy.
• - "teach/learn", e.g. "uczyć/uczyć się", e.g. I learn Polish: uczę się polskiego.
• - "use": "używać", e.g. I use my intelligence: używam mojej inteligencji.
• - "to forget": "zapomninać", e.g. I have forgotten everything: zapomniałem wszystkiego.
• - "to desire/to want": "życzyć", e.g. I want what I don't have: życzę sobie tego, czego nie mam.

• With expressions of quantity:
• - a lot/much/many (dużo): e.g. there are many eggs: jest dużo jajek.
• - little/few (mało): e.g. I have little sugar: mam mało cukru.
• - a little/a few (trochę): e.g. there is a little bread: jest trochę chleba.
• - measure: e.g. a glass of water: szklanka wody.
• - after the number 4 (not included): e.g. five fresh eggs: cztery świeże jajka.
• - some/any: e.g. do you want some tea?: nalać ci herbaty?

• With expressions such as "there isn't" (nie ma), "there wasn't" (nie było), "there won't be" (nie będzie), e.g. there is no sugar: nie ma cukru.

• With some expressions connnected to the place:
• - "from" ("od" or "z"): e.g. I come from England: pochodzę z Angli.
• - "at" ("u"): e.g. I at Konrad's: jestem u Konrada.
• - "to" (do): e.g. I go to Krakow: jadę do Krakowa.
• - "for" (dla): e.g. a present for you: prezent dla ciebie.
• - "near, nearby" (koło/obok): e.g. I close to your house: jestem blisko twojego domu.
• - "without" (bez): e.g. I am without money: jestem bez pieniędzy.

• With some expressions of time:
• - those days: tych dni.
• - the 4th of Semptember: czwartego września.

Singular Genitive

 

In order to form the singular genitive we need to add the following endings to the roots of the words. Endings are different depending if words are adjectives or nouns:

GENDER	ADJECTIVE	NOUN
Masculine animated	- ego	- a
Masculine not animated	- ego	- a / u
Femminine e Neutral	- ej - ego	- y / i (if the noun ends with -k, -g or -j) - a

As we can notice, neutral and feminine nouns are declined in the same way, while masculine nouns have different endings depending if they are not animated (objects, fruits etc.) or animated (human beings, animals).

Plural Genitive

Plural genitive is very easy, as you can see below:

GENDER	ADJECTIVE	NOUN
Masculine	- ych	- ów - i - y
Femminine	- ych	- ø - i - y
Neutral	- ych	- ø

Adjectives plural genitive form ends always with "ych", while nouns have more or less the same endings for all genders.

Genitive Personal Pronouns

Personal pronouns change according to the noun gender. This means they concord with the thing which is possessed, not with the gender of the owner.

NOMINATIVE		GENITIVE
EN	POL	EN	POL	EN	POL	EN	POL
		MASCULINE		FEMMININE		NEUTRAL
I	ja	mine	mój	mine	moja	mine	moje
you (singular)	ty	yours	twój	yours	twoja	yours	twoje
he/it	on/ono	his, its	jego	his, its	his, its	his, its	his, its
she	ona	hers	jej	hers	jej	hers	jej
we	my	ours	nasz	ours	nasza	ours	nasze
you (plural)	wy	yours	wasz	yours	wasza	yours	wasze
they	oni/one	theirs	ich	theirs	ich	theirs	ich

ATTENTION: We have just studied possessive pronouns - those words which can go instead of nouns - but there are also possessive adjectives, which go together with nouns.

An example of possessive pronouns is “Can you borrow me yours?”, an example of possesssive adjective is “Can you borrow me your car?”. In English possessive pronouns are different from possessive adjectives: mine-my, yours-your, his-his etc. In Polish, however, they do not differ from each other so much.

If their form is egual, we just need to bear in mind that possessive pronouns have to be declined as nouns, while possessive adjectives have to be declined as adjectives.

e.g. That is your mother, this is mine: To jest twoja mama, to jest moja

e.g. You gift flowers to your mum, I gift a dress to mine: ty dajesz swojej mamie kwiaty, ja mojej ubranie.

Exercises:

Genitive

Complete the following sentences adding nouns and adjectives declined in their genitive forms.