Relative Clauses - po Polsku

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germantiger
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Relative Clauses - po Polsku

Postby germantiger » 2014-03-03, 21:27

Cześć!

I have a quick question that Google hasn't been able to answer entirely (probably due to my own lack of proper grammar vocab) that's rather simple. How are relative clauses formed in Polish? For example:

The man that went to the store also bought a new car.
Mark bought a new car that was a lemon.

Nur kurz auf Deutsch: Wie bildet man denn Nebensätze bezogen auf das Subjekt/Objekt des Hauptsatzes? Ich frage mal auf Deutsch, da es sich für mich besser auf Deutsch erklären lässt.

Der Mann, der zum Laden ging, kaufte auch ein Auto.
Mark kaufte ein neues Auto, welches blau war.

Pomoc? ^^ Dziękuję!
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Advancedish: (fr) (lu)
Intermediate: (es) (it)
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Corrections welcomed!

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Re: Relative Clauses - po Polsku

Postby linguoboy » 2014-03-04, 2:21

By means of the relative pronoun który, which is declined like an adjective:

The man that went to the store also bought a new car.
Człowiek, który poszedł do sklepu, także kupił nowe auto.

Mark bought a new car that was blue.
Mark kupił nowe auto, które było niebieskie

Colloquially, jaki can sometimes be used as well.
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Re: Relative Clauses - po Polsku

Postby germantiger » 2014-03-08, 9:03

Thanks! That really helps. :)
Native: (en -US) (de) (Fränggisch)
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Re: Relative Clauses - po Polsku

Postby pittmirg » 2014-03-15, 11:56

Colloquially, co (as an uninflectable particle) is pretty damn common.
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Re: Relative Clauses - po Polsku

Postby Kuba » 2014-04-14, 21:19

pittmirg wrote:Colloquially, co (as an uninflectable particle) is pretty damn common.

Yes, but this construction may be a bit troublesome for beginners: 1) it's colloquial, and it sounds really non-standard to me - no one in my family uses it; 2) it usually is accompanied by resumptive pronouns, like in
Książka, co czytałem, była nudna.
Kobieta, co jej dałem kompakty, była niemiła.
Mężczyzna, co go widziałem, ...

and so on. Right or wrong?
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Re: Relative Clauses - po Polsku

Postby linguoboy » 2014-04-14, 21:24

Wow, that seems very close to the usage of wu in Alemmanic.
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Re: Relative Clauses - po Polsku

Postby pittmirg » 2014-04-15, 13:27

Kuba wrote:
pittmirg wrote:Colloquially, co (as an uninflectable particle) is pretty damn common.

Yes, but this construction may be a bit troublesome for beginners: 1) it's colloquial, and it sounds really non-standard to me - no one in my family uses it;


That depends on how their L1 handles relative clauses. Besides, they should know about it anyway if they want to understand informal spoken Polish, much like you should know about ain't, innit and gonna if you want to understand informal spoken English. I could even bring up sporadic literary uses (mostly - but not always - to convey a folksy feel).

2) it usually is accompanied by resumptive pronouns


Unless co is the subject; in other cases they can often be left out, too, if the clause is unambiguous thanks to e.g. agreement on the verb.

Your examples are alright.
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Re: Relative Clauses - po Polsku

Postby Kuba » 2014-04-27, 20:21

linguoboy wrote:Wow, that seems very close to the usage of wu in Alemmanic.

It is, if you are interested, you could try to obtain a copy of Martin Salzmann's doctoral thesis "Resumptive Prolepsis. A study in indirect A’-dependencies" (Utrecht: 2006; though he wrote it for Leiden). One of the funny things of language contact is that this kind of relative clauses from Polish influenced Yiddish relative clauses, too. So Yiddish has two kinds of relative clauses: a traditional one (starting with "velkher/e/s") and a "Polish" one (starting with "vos" and employing resumptives)...
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Re: Relative Clauses - po Polsku

Postby Kuba » 2014-04-27, 20:25

pittmirg wrote:That depends on how their L1 handles relative clauses. Besides, they should know about it anyway if they want to understand informal spoken Polish, much like you should know about ain't, innit and gonna if you want to understand informal spoken English. I could even bring up sporadic literary uses (mostly - but not always - to convey a folksy feel).

It seems that their mental grammar is pretty conservative when it comes to this kind of construction. My mother cringed when I used it and my uncle hates it; many of my friends consider it "primitive" (although they use it themselves, from time to time). But you're right, of course, in your point that we all know how to interpret it correctly...
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