Declension of numbers in the Polish language and the typical students’ mistakes who learn Polish as a foreign language

Abstract

The concept of quantity is important when reproducing specific information. The numeral adjective is a part of speech we use every day, and in some situations we cannot do without them at all. In the Polish language, numeral adjectives are considered to be the most complex part of the language for both foreigners, studying Polish, and for native speakers. Mistaken forms in the use of numerical constructs occur not only in colloquial style, but also in writing. A number of inconsistencies is primarily due to the fuzzy definition of the numeral adjective as part of the speech, since during the analysis of lexemes  it is not always possible to determine unambiguously which part of the speech belongs to the word. In addition, in colloquial style, many numerical constructs, which are not normative, are used. As a result, even Polish native speakers are forced to use the dictionary to control the correctness of the use or daily variation of numerical phrases, and therefore, the chosen topic is relevant.

Purpose. The purpose of the paper is to describe and consistently analyze grammatical numerical inconsistencies, describe the difficulty of memorizing normative variants, as well as comment on the typical mistakes made by students when studying Polish as a foreign language. The materials for the study were the practical, independent, modular and final tasks of the students, which are performed during the study of the Polish language as a foreign language, and include exercises intended to control the level of assimilation of declarations and the harmonization of numeral adjectives in the Polish language.

Methods. We use descriptive, comparative, and comparable research methods to accomplish the tasks and achieve our goals.

Results. We conventionally divided the article into two parts, theoretical and practical. In the first part we consider, describe and characterize the numeral adjectives. In the second one, we present the most common mistakes and normative variants of the use of numerical

constructs. For this purpose, we analyzed the most common mistakes that students assume while performing practical, self-development work, modular, and credit tasks.

The results of the analysis have showed that the greatest difficulty arises upon the declination of the number of numeral adjectives from 1 to 4 in the masculine-person gender,  as well as the combined and fractional numerals. It raises the problem of denoting the dates and complex numeral adjectives,also the syntactic norms of numerator sequence with a predicate are often violated.

Originality. For the correct declension of numeral adjectives it is not enough to have a developed linguistic intuition, since it is encoded in the language of everyday human communication. In the Polish language, in particular, when the numerals are omitted, one needs to know the grammatical nuances, for example, to take into account the separation of  all nominal parts of a language in a plural into a masculine-person and a non-masculine- personal genders, to remember about numeral adjectives that are abbreviated as nouns or adjectives, or have a number of variant forms that are a literary norm.

Conclusion. Thus, the numeral adjective as a part of speech needs further attention and study, since the Polish language is characterized by not typical and heterogeneity. Apart from the described and analyzed grammatical features, we can say for sure that the evolution of the numerals in the Polish language continues and, in our opinion, it will be continued for a long time.