być + instrumental/narzędnik?

do_shahbaz
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być + instrumental/narzędnik?

Postby do_shahbaz » 2021-12-17, 17:49

Apparently in some (or most?) situations one would use the instrumental even in seemingly copular sentences. Np. Piotr jest małym dzieckiem. Question is, in which situations does one use the instrumental after być, and in which cases one doesn't?

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silmeth
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Re: być + instrumental/narzędnik?

Postby silmeth » 2021-12-23, 23:12

You generally use it whenever the predicate is a noun phrase – you state what or whom something/someone is: Piotr jest małym dzieckiem ‘Piotr is a little child’, Poznań jest dużym miastem ‘Poznań is a big city’, Dublin jest stolicą Irlandii ‘Dublin is the capital city of Ireland’…

You use nominative when the predicate is an adjective – when you describe what someone or something is like: Piotr jest mały ‘Piotr is little’, Poznań jest duży ‘Poznań is big’.

One exception to this are sentences with the pronoun to ‘it’ as their subjects, they use nominative: to jest duży kot ‘it is a big cat’.

And the same is true when you use the X to (jest) Y copular construction: Piotr to małe dziecko ‘Piotr is a little child’.

Sometimes you’ll see different usage though, mostly for stylistic reasons: jam jest syn Tuhaj-beja! ‘I am the son of Tuhaj-bej’ in a book by Sienkiewicz with nominative. More rarely yet you’ll see describing adjectives in instrumental (but it may happen sometimes too).
polszczyzna jest moją mową ojczystą (pl), Is í Gaelainn na Mumhan atá á foghlaim agam (ga) ((ga-M)), mám, myslím, dobrou znalost češtiny, rozumím a něco mluvím (cs), Jeg lærer meg bokmål på Duolingo (no-nb) (og eg ville lære nynorsk ein gong (no-nn))


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