Polish/Order of words in a sentence
< More on nouns - genders < ^ Polish ^ > Plural >
In Polish, word order within a sentence is flexible, and the subject or object can be omitted if they are clear from the context.
Consider the following sentences, all of which translate to "Henia has a cat", but are used in different contexts:
- Henia ma kota (simple statement)
- Henia kota ma (emphasizing that it's a cat that Henia has)
- Kota ma Henia (emphasizing that it's Henia who has a cat)
- Ma Henia kota
- Kota Henia ma (emphasizing the action "has")
- Ma kota Henia
The first word order is the most common. Other orders are used for emphasis.
If the subject, object, or verb is clear from the context, it can be dropped:
- Ma kota - can be used if it's clear who is being talked about
- Ma - can be an answer to "Czy Henia ma kota?" (Does Henia have a cat?)
- Henia - can be an answer to "Kto ma kota?" (Who has a cat?)
- Kota - can be an answer to "Co ma Henia?" (What does Henia have?)
- Henia ma - this is less natural. In Polish, there is a tendency to drop the subject rather than the object, especially when the object is known but the subject is not. If the question was "Kto ma kota?" (Who has a cat?), the answer should be "Henia" alone, without a verb.
In particular, the pronouns "ja" and "ty", and their plural equivalents "my" and "wy", are almost always dropped.