THIRD DECLENSION.

Neuter Substantives.

To this declension belong all the neuter substantives. ending in e, e, 0. These neuter nouns differ from masculines, with the same termination; in the neuters the nominative, accusative and vocative are the same in both numbers in the plural these cases end in a.

:

To this declension belong the verbal substantives in ie, but, as a rule, they are only used in the singular.

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Many other substantives are also used only in the singular, especially when a collective idea is implied; as, żyto, 'barley;' jazda, cavalry;' dziatwa, 'children.' Others are only used in the plural; as, chrzciny, 'baptism;' lowy, 'hunting.' Substantives can also be modified into diminutives and augmentatives; as, krówka, 'a little cow;' mieścisko, a great ugly town.' In some substantives in the last syllable in the locative a and o are changed into e, as gniazdo, the nest,' w gniezdie; siodło, the saddle,' w siedle; jezioro, 'the lake,' w jezierze; żelazo, 'the iron,' w żelazie.

The following substantives are also irregular :-oko, 'the eye;' ucho, 'the ear,' in the plural; xiąze, 'prince,' is irregular in the singular-in the plural it is declined like cielęta, calves.'

In the plurals of oko 'the eye' and ucho 'the ear' we find dual forms mixed up with the others.

Niebo, 'the sky,' has for the nominative plural niebiosa, and for the locative w niebiosach or w niebiesiech, 'in the skies.'

Ziele, 'a herb,' formerly zioło, changes in all the cases of the plural et into oł: n. zioła, herbs,' g. zioł, d. ziołom, &c.

There was also in the old Polish language a dual of the verbs, as is still found in Slovenish and Lusatian-Wendish, but it is now obsolete.

Diminutives are formed in Polish in the following manner :—The final letter of the stem is changed, c into cz, ch into sz, g into ż, k into cz, t into c; thus, ulica, a street,'

uliczka, 'a little street;' brat,' a brother,' braciszek, 'a little brother.' Diminutives derived from monosyllables end for the most part in ik, as kon,' a horse,' konik; stoł, 'a table,' stolik; sometimes in yk, as stolarczyk, ' a journeyman carpenter,' szewczyk, a journeyman shoemaker.' Sometimes the vowels are changed, as ręka, ‘a hand,' rączka, ‘a little hand.' Another diminutive form is yna or ina, as psina, 'poor little dog,' expressing 'amoris quandam fatuitatem,' as the old grammarians used to say. Here also may be mentioned the termination -arnia, to express the place at which a trade is carried on, as drukarnia, ‘a printingoffice;' kawiarnia, a coffee-house.'

ADJECTIVES.

The Polish adjective has the same number of cases as the noun, and its inflections vary according to the three genders. In the nominative masculine it ends in y or i, in the feminine in a, in the neuter in e.