Contrastive grammar

Question 1

Grammatical contrast between Polish and English in terms of the category of number

Answer 1

Both inflect for number, but how they are inflected differs; it’s mostly predictable in English (-s ending), with exceptions for words such as mice, geese stemming from productive ablaut in Old English (also – sheep sheep); in Polish, the ending choice is based not on just number, but also on grammatical gender and case; also, Polish does not use ablaut plural, nor does it retain the same form in plural).
In both languages, we have to do with pluralia tantum (skrzypce, clothes) and singularia tantum (odzież, information), but they do not necessarily correspond to each other.

Question 2

Grammatical category of tense in English and Polish

Answer 2

English has two tense forms (past, present, what’s missing expressed through auxiliary) ; Polish has three; present, past, future; Polish – doesn’t distinguish limited present (present continuous). Aspect in Polish says whether the action have been done, or ended. It replaces the perfect and progressive form in English.

Question 3

Subject-verb agreement in English and Polish

Answer 3

Types of agreement – morphological and notional (Philippines example)
Grammatically plural can be singular notionally – singular verb in English; plural in Polish in most cases. Adverbials and nominal clauses – singular agreements in Eng. In Polish, grammatical agreement dominates the forms, but there is a special class of premodifiers which affects the agreement

Question 4

Passive voice in English and Polish

Answer 4

They are formed similarly:
- Verb into passive form; subject of the active verb becomes the direct object
But in English only can indirect object become the subject.
It’s more productive in English – Polish has other constructions that can be used to divert attention from the subject (word order in a sentence, impersonal constructions such as -no -to verbs).
Prepositional verbs – can become passive in English, not in Polish
Verbs + complement as infinitival clause = impossible in Polish (he is believed to be…)

Question 5

Lexical contrast between Polish and English

Answer 5

false friends, cognates and borrowings