1. Family: Indo-European
  2. Genus: Slavic

Polish

WALS coordinates: 52° N, 20° E

spoken in Poland

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Polish
Routledge:
    Other:
      ISO 639-3:

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Moderately large
      Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio High
      Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In both plosives and fricatives
      Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems None missing in /p t k b d g/
      Uvular Consonants None
      Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
      Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
      Front Rounded Vowels None
      Syllable Structure Complex
      Tone No tones
      Fixed Stress Locations Penultimate
      Weight-Sensitive Stress Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)
      Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems No weight
      Rhythm Types Trochaic
      Absence of Common Consonants All present
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
      Morphology
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strongly suffixing
      Nominal Categories
      Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural suffix
      The Associative Plural Associative same as additive plural
      Definite Articles No definite or indefinite article
      Indefinite Articles No definite or indefinite article
      Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns 3rd person only, but also non-singular
      Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns Binary politeness distinction
      Indefinite Pronouns Interrogative-based
      Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Differentiated
      Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking
      Number of Cases 6-7 cases
      Asymmetrical Case-Marking Syncretism in relevant NP-types
      Position of Case Affixes Case suffixes
      Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation
      Ordinal Numerals First, second, three-th
      Distributive Numerals Marked by preceding word
      Nominal Syntax
      Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
      Verbal Categories
      Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes
      The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
      The Prohibitive Normal imperative + normal negative
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of system
      Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
      Epistemic Possibility Verbal constructions
      Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking Overlap for both possibility and necessity
      Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect Tense and aspect
      Verbal Number and Suppletion None
      Word Order
      Order of Subject, Object and Verb SVO
      Order of Subject and Verb No dominant order
      Order of Object and Verb VO
      Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Prepositions
      Order of Genitive and Noun Noun-Genitive
      Order of Adjective and Noun Adjective-Noun
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative-Noun
      Order of Numeral and Noun Numeral-Noun
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
      Order of Degree Word and Adjective Degree word-Adjective
      Position of Polar Question Particles Initial
      Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Initial interrogative phrase
      Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Initial subordinator word
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase VO and Prepositions
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun VO and NRel
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun VO and AdjN
      Simple Clauses
      Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Accusative
      Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject clitics on variable host
      Verbal Person Marking Only the A argument
      Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking No zero realization
      Order of Person Markers on the Verb A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb
      Reciprocal Constructions Mixed
      Passive Constructions Present
      Negative Morphemes Negative particle
      Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Predicate negation also present
      Polar Questions Question particle
      Predicative Possession 'Have'
      Predicative Adjectives Nonverbal encoding
      Nominal and Locational Predication Identical
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Possible
      Lexicon
      Hand and Arm Different
      Finger and Hand Different
      Tea Others