Page:A simplified grammar of the Polish language.djvu/23

 (1) -any, -ny, -owy, indicate the material of which a thing is made, as miedziany, ‘made of copper,’ kamienny, ‘made of stone.’

(2) Diminutive adjectives in -awy, as czarniawy, ‘rather black, blackish,’ słodkawy, ‘rather sweet.’ Diminutives, both adjectives and substantives, are very much used in all Slavonic languages.

(3) The termination -owity denotes tendency, as chorowity, ‘sickly,’ from choroba, ‘illness;’ jadowity, ‘poisonous,’ from jad, ‘poison.’

(4) Adjectives in -cki, -dzki, -ski, -zki imply posession or connexion with, as Niemiecki, ‘German,’ from Niemiec, ‘a German.’ The termination ski is added to the names of towns and villages, as obywatel Warszawski, ‘an inhabitant of Warsaw;’ Biskup Żmudzki, ‘the Bishop of Samogitia.’ This is also the termination of many family names derived from their place of residence, as Czartoryski, Sobieski, &c. The various kinds of compound adjectives have been omitted here for want of space, but they may easily be found in the dictionaries.

The comparative degree is formed by the addition of ejszy or szy to the root, as biały, ‘white,’ biełszy, ‘whiter;’ czarny, ‘black,’ czarniejszy, ‘blacker.’

The superlative is formed by adding the syllable naj to the comparative, as tani, ‘cheap,’ tańszy, ‘cheaper,’ naj-