# Tyś, myśmy...



## slavic_one

I have seen these short variations of "ty jesteś" and "my jesteśmy". Are those literaly correct and free to use, and is there also some fore other persons (I guess there could be for 2nd pl. wyście, but for other can't tell I have ideas) ?


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## dn88

I think those forms would be considered archaic in the context you're talking about. I'd never use them in that way unless I wanted to sound funny.

"myśmy" is, however, often used in constructions such as (and here it means something different):
_
Myśmy to zrobili._

The statement above is equivalent to:

_Zrobliliśmy to./My to zrobiliśmy.
_
I assume it's a contracted version of "my żeśmy" and it's really common.

The same rule applies to "wyście":_

Wyście to zrobli. = Zrobiliście to./Wy to zrobiliście.

_Generally speaking, in most cases, you can "take" the _śmy/ście _part from the ending of a verb and "connect" it to _my/wy_.

Hope that gives you a starting point, if not confuses you even more.


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## ryba

dn88 said:


> I think those forms would be considered archaic in the context you're talking about. I'd never use them in that way unless I wanted to sound funny.


I agree.

They can also sound more dramatic than other forms and thus have a bigger expressive potential. That's why, let's say,

_Tyś to zrobił._

sounds more like a reproach than the neutral

_Ty to zrobiłeś._

_Ty to zrobiłeś_ would need "_To_" to convey the approximate meaning of _Tyś to zrobił_: _To ty to zrobiłeś_ (= It was you who did it.).

I guess the construction has this value because

1. it is archaic

2. the stress is put on the gramatical person to a bigger degree than in other structures due to two facts:
a) it always appears in the beginning
b) it is reacher in meaning than the simple "ty" as it has the -ś part that prepares the listener to listen the resting part knowing beforehand what kind of verbal tense they should expect so they are more focused on the meaning.

That's what has occurred to me. Let's see what others say.

Cheers!


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## slavic_one

Thank you, guys!
I think I get the piont, and I guess there's no such form for ja, on/ona/ono and oni/one/ona then.


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## njumi

slavic_one said:


> Thank you, guys!
> I think I get the piont, and I guess there's no such form for ja, on/ona/ono and oni/one/ona then.



For _ja _you can use the form _jam_: _jam to zrobił_... in the case of _on/ona/ono_, _oni/one_ I can't find any forms that match the pattern (probably they don't exist).


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## slavic_one

njumi said:


> For _ja _you can use the form _jam_: _jam to zrobił_... in the case of _on/ona/ono_, _oni/one_ I can't find any forms that match the pattern (probably they don't exist).


"Jam" sounds a bit strange to me, but thanks!


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## CapnPrep

njumi said:


> For _ja _you can use the form _jam_: _jam to zrobił_... in the case of _on/ona/ono_, _oni/one_ I can't find any forms that match the pattern (probably they don't exist).


The third person ending is ∅ so there is nothing to move around. I.e., _ja*m*_ (_jeste*m*_, _byłe*m*_), _ty*ś*_ (_jeste*ś*_, _byłe*ś*_), _on_-∅ (_jest_-∅, _był_-∅).

These endings don't just go with verbs and subject pronouns. They sometimes appear on other words, especially adverbs and question words (see also _żeśmy_ mentioned by dn88 above). These examples are from Swan's grammar (p. 255):


_Dlaczego*ś*_ tak wcześnie wstała? Why did you get up so early? 
_Trochę*śmy*_ się niepokoili. We were somewhat concerned. 
_Juże*m*_ ci powiedział. I've already told you.
_Gdzie*ście*_ byli cały dzień? Where have you been all day?
He says these are colloquial/dialectal (particularly southern Polish), sometimes archaic or odd, and should not be imitated by learners.


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## ryba

I second everything said by CapnPrep.

I only wanted to say how I feel about each of given examples (I am basing on my post #3):



_Dlaczego*ś*_ tak wcześnie wstała? Why did you get up so early? Natural sounding, used for reproaching.

_Trochę*śmy*_ się niepokoili. We were somewhat concerned. Archaic but still quite normal, I would use it in a conversation, there's no problem about it.

_Juże*m*_ ci powiedział. I've already told you. Kind of archaic and solemn although I would still use it to reproach, with a tone suggesting my patience is failing/exhausted. Anyway, in case of the 1st person singular adding -m to something that is not a verb sounds particularly solemn. 

_Gdzie*ście*_ byli cały dzień? Where have you been all day? Natural sounding, used for reproaching.

Where I said I would reproach someone for something using the above structure it doesn't mean it can be used only for that purpose. It just means in different contexts it works as a pure archaism (solemn sounding but understandable for any Polish native speaker).


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## Piotr_WRF

I'll just add my 2 cents. All the examples given by *CapnPrep* sound natural and are what I would say given the context, except the one in 1st pers. sg. This one sounds truly archaic.


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## slavic_one

Now I can add my opinion as a foreign speaker. As I already told, 1st person sg. sounds pretty odd to me, but rest of it sounds ok, especially for perfect, I'd say it's more similar to Croatian and other Slavic languages then the "usual" form is.


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## mcibor

One more thing. Jam is not used so much, but Żem, in my opinion is used a bit more often:

Jak żem powiedział,


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## JakubikF

"Ja żem powiedział" is an INCORRECT form! You must not use it. It is a very common mistake nowadays. "żem/żeś" can be used only in subordinate clause np. "Film tak bardzo mi się spodobał, żem postanowił obejrzeć go jeszcze raz."; "Słyszałem, żeś w końcu zdał egzanim na prawo jazdy" etc.


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## mcibor

hmm, I didn't know that, but you made a small mistake - I didn't write _Ja żem powiedział_ only _jak_. Meaning, that it's not end of sentence. E.g.

_Jak żem powiedział, powinniśmy się spotkać.

_So it is in subordinate clause_ 
_


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## JakubikF

I think I need to buy new glasses . Anyway, it is true you wrote "jak żem..." but is it really a subordinate clause? Don't you think that more correct would be to say: "Jak powiedziałem, powinniśmy się spotkać"? If we transform your sentence it could be written as: "Jak że powiedziałem, powinniśmy się spotkać" - in this sentence "że" is a particle, but using it in this case does not make sense and it is incorrect in my opinion. 

That what you suggest, I think, may be expressed in this example: "Jakem powiedział, powinniśmy się spotkać" or "Jakem powiedział, takem zrobił". Both are correct but rarely used. 

As far as I know, the particle "-że" or "-żeż" in some situations can make a verb stronger but there must be a verb ("jak" is not a verb). E.g. "Wróćże/Wróćżeż do domu, jest już póżno." etc. 

One more think come to my mind. Your example may also be a dialect. In Silesia region, people tend to use some variations of this "żem", "żeś" but then it is Polish never more. We have to consider grammar of Silesian language which is different from Polish one.


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## njumi

In my opinion the proper form in this case is *jakem*:

_ jakem postanowił, takem zrobił_


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## mcibor

Maybe, though I am positively sure I have heard in Szczecin someone saying:

Jak żem powiedział... to enhance that it was me who said it. But we have many people from Silesia here, so that may be true.


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## jazyk

To bardzo przypomina język czeski: Jak jsem pověděl/řekl.


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## kknd

_jak żem_ generally is incorrect (see notices about subordinate clause above); correct version differs in writing: _jakżem_ should be perfectly fine here (e.g.  _Jakżem już powiedział_,  _Jak żem już powiedział_; in first particle _-że_ makes utterance stronger, enclitic _-m_ was moved from verb; in second _że_ is not particle but conjuction).


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## Thomas1

jazyk said:


> To bardzo przypomina język czeski: Jak jsem pověděl/řekl.


    It is indeed similar and reminiscent of old conjugation we used to have in Polish in the past.

  Polish verbs used to be conjugated with the auxiliary verb być.
  jeśm 
  jeś
  jest
  jesmy
  jeście
  są

  These along with the active past participle formed the past composed tense:
  Ja jeśm poszedł.
  Ty jeś poszedł.
  On jest poszedł.
  My jesmy poszli.
  Wy jeście poszli.
  Oni są poszli.
  The participle was changed for feminine and neuter conjugation.

  The auxiliary could stand after the active past participle:
  Ja poszedł jeśm.
  Then it evolved, due to pronunciation I suppose, into one form and hence we have endings in the past tense today (there is ø for third persons)):
  Ja poszedłem.
  Both forms I described above were still alive in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the fifteenth century they gradually started to change and the auxiliary for the third persons to disappear.

  Initially, the endings were tucked to a word they followed if the auxiliary preceded the participle:
  Ty jeś poszedł. -- Tyś poszedł.
  My jesmy poszli. -- Myśmy poszli.
  Oni są poszli. -- Oni poszli.
  If they followed the participle they were attached to the participle:
  Ty poszedł jeś. -- Ty poszedłeś.
  My poszli jesmy -- My poszliśmy.
  Oni poszli są. -- Oni poszli.
  The paradigm grew in strength in the sixteenth century and has survived up until now.




njumi said:


> In my opinion the proper form in this case is *jakem*:
> 
> _ jakem postanowił, takem zrobił_


  Sentences of the type:
_jakem postanowił, takem zrobił_
  are indeed correct
  jak jeśm postanowił, tak jeśm zrobił 
  the auxiliary precedes the active past participle and yields _jakem postanowił, takem zrobił._

***

I don't think _jakżem _or _jak żem_ are correct at all in standard Polish, even though they are used.

***


    To me 
_Jam poszedł._
  type of sentences sound archaic.
_Tyś poszedł. _
  is a bit old-fashioned, but I wouldn’t rise my brows at it and know many people who will use them (mainly elderly).
_Myśmy poszli._
  and
_Wyście poszli._
  are perfectly natural and commonly used in modern Polish.

_Ty ześ poszedł._
  is not correct but you can often hear it in modern Polish, is has a certain folksy tang to it and can definitely be more robust/ reproachful than _Tyś poszedł._ given the proper intonation. An even more reproachful verging on being rude could be _Ty żeś polazł._  


Tom


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## slavic_one

jazyk said:


> To bardzo przypomina język czeski: Jak jsem pověděl/řekl.


Yes, that's why I already said this form is more similar to other Slavic lngs 



Tomasz, thank you very much for that brilliant post!!!
That's all about it! I didn't know that existed in Polish, but I's preatty much logical because all other Slavic languages have that form (except those ones that don't have auxiliary verbs, like Russian).


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## ryba

Thomas1 said:


> An even more reproachful verging on being rude could be _Ty żeś polazł._


Hahahah.

I would perfectly use it to reproach:

_Gdzieżeś polazł?!_

and it would mean basically the same as

_Gdzieś polazł?!_

or

_Gdzieś__ ty__ polazł?!_

I think the first one (the -żeś ending form) is the heaviest sounding one and it definitely has that dialectal taste we all love.


It would like to rectify one thing. The word "correct" has been used many times in this thread with the meaning of 'normative'.

There are many things that are gramatically correct (do not present any crime against logic) but are not normative and thus not recommended for non-native users.

_Jak żem chciał, tak żem zrobił._

is an archaism/dialectalism that is perfectly logical and keeps on being used, the thing is it is used more often in some regions than in others.

This kind of usage is not a normative one and a scholarised speaker will know in what kind of contexts it's O.K. for him to use the expression and in what king of context it would not be appropriate.


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## jazyk

Dopiero co znalazłem się z _jakem_ w Quo Vadis:

Stara to siedziba - odrzekł Plaucjusz - w której nic nie zmieniłem od czasu, jakem ją odziedziczył.


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## Thomas1

ryba said:


> [...]
> I would perfectly use it to reproach:
> 
> _Gdzieżeś polazł?!_
> 
> and it would mean basically the same as
> 
> _Gdzieś polazł?!_
> [...]


My sentiments exactly. 
Wersja, którą się słyszy najczęściej nie ma ł:
Gdzieżeś polas?! 
albo:
No gdzieżeś polas?! 



jazyk said:


> Dopiero co znalazłem się z _jakem_ w Quo Vadis:
> 
> Stara to siedziba - odrzekł Plaucjusz - w której nic nie zmieniłem od czasu, jakem ją odziedziczył.


W tej książce ta konstrukcja akurat pasuje. Wydaje mi się, że Sienkiewicz świadomie jej użył.


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## jazyk

To tak napisałem, bo to jest tak dobra książka, że miałem wrażenie, że w świecie jesteśmy tylko my z nią.


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## werrr

Thomas1 said:


> jazyk said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> To bardzo przypomina język czeski: Jak jsem pověděl/řekl.
> 
> 
> 
> It is indeed similar and reminiscent of old conjugation we used to have in Polish in the past.
Click to expand...

Czech uses the modern Polish way too, but only for the singular second person.

It is rather rare (poetic) for the verb “to be” as for the verb of meaning:

  podobnas… (you are similar to…)
  tys krásná (you are beautiful)

It is very frequent for the verb “to be” as auxiliary:

  šel/šla/šlo jsi → šels, šlas, šlos

and as in Polish it could be contracted with other words, mainly with the interrogatives:

  kde jsi byl(a/o) → kdes byl(a/o)
  co jsi to udělal → cos to udělal

It is even obligatory with the reflexives:

   učil ses × učil jsi se  (common mistake)

I only wonder why you all call it ending. Isn’t it misconception? For us it is contraction with the enclitic form of the verb “to be”.


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## Thomas1

It's what it is called today. You have to bear in mind that the auxiliary "be" was common in Polish a few centuries ago and today practically no one knows about that. It is much easier to call them endings than enclitics formed on the basis of the old conjugation of the verb to be.


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## kknd

Thomas1 is probably speaking about _czas zaprzeszły_ (past participle?). I have a question: was this auxiliary  (modal?) 'be' used in other constructions?

Ok. I have probably one answer: passive voice in Polish where forms of 'to be' (_być_) or 'to become' (_zostać_) are engaged with adjectival participle (passive) and compound nominal predicate(?) (_orzeczenie imienne_, does someone know the names of those in English?), where 'to be', 'to become', 'to get' (_robić się_) or even particle 'to' (translated as 'is') is used as a linker (?) (_łącznik_, again: name please! ).


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## robin74

kknd said:


> Thomas1 is probably speaking about _czas zaprzeszły_ (past participle?). I have a question: was this auxiliary  (modal?) 'be' used in other constructions?


Actually, Thomas1 is talking about simple past tense. Historically, "zrobił" is a participle. And while "zrobił był" (past perfect) is still used even if considered archaic, it used to be, similarly, "zrobił jest" in the simple past (which in modern Polish reduced to just "zrobił"). In the other persons the auxiliary form of "to be" (as in "zrobił jeśm") got assimilated with the verb (to become "zrobiłem", with removable ending).


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## BezierCurve

> it used to be, similarly, "zrobił jest" in the simple past (which in modern Polish reduced to just "zrobił"). In the other persons the auxiliary form of "to be" (as in "zrobił jeśm") got assimilated with the verb (to become "zrobiłem", with removable ending).


Exactly so, I remember professor Miodek got very emotional about it in one of his programmes. He compared that to its Czech equivalent at that time too.


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## Ben Jamin

slavic_one said:


> Yes, that's why I already said this form is more similar to other Slavic lngs
> 
> 
> 
> Tomasz, thank you very much for that brilliant post!!!
> That's all about it! I didn't know that existed in Polish, but I's pretty much logical because all other Slavic languages have that form (except those ones that don't have auxiliary verbs, like Russian).


 
Well, Russian went through a similar process of formation of the compound past tense, but it went further than Polish, and dropped all the auxilliaries alltogether, leaving only the participle (but they were there earlier).
So  we have three stages of development in the Slavic languages:
separate auxilliary verbs + participle (Czech, Serbian) 
incorporated auxilliary verbs as endings + loose endings (Polish)
lost auxiliaries (Russian).


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