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- Topic: Polish >
- "Mówimy o Julii."
14 Comments
I'm still having trouble understanding the 7 cases. Why is this Genitive case? You're talking about Julia, it doesn't belong to Julia.
It's Locative. Apart from 'locations', one of the most common usages of Locative is "o" = "about". Genitive just looks the same here.
Is there any other applications of Locative that doesn't involved location?
Apart from "o", nothing comes to my mind right now, but there might be.
For pronunciation, is there a double "ee" here, i.e. "yule-eeh-eeh" (like the same idea with double consonants)?
I know the audio is not giving us that but don't entirely trust the audio :)
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In non-Slavic loanwords ending in -ia, -i- has a double role: it palatalises the consonant, as it usually does, but it's also pronounced as -j-. For that reason, genitive, dative, locative singular and genitive plural of those words end in -ii: first -i- palatalises the consonant and is pronounced as -j-, second -i is a vowel.
Before 1936 or so, those words were written with -j-, so Julja, Julji. In fact, I think it was a better and more phonetic way to spell those words.
Note that in words of Slavic origin ending with -ia, that -i- isn't pronounced as -j- and disappears, so the genitive doesn't end with -ii, but -i.
-cia, -sia, -zia, -dzia – Slavic origin, genitive in -i
-nia – mixed; for a minimal pair: Dania /dańja/ Denmark, dania /dańa/ meals
-bia, -mia – usually non-Slavic, but there are few Slavic words ending that way, most importantly ziemia
-pia – not sure, most likely all non-Slavic
-fia, -tia, -dia, -ria, -lia, -chia, -hia, -kia, -gia – all non-Slavic, genitive in -ii
Note that for some of those consonants, like -t-, -d-, -r-, palatalisation has almost no phonetic effect.
I feel like the distinction between „-ja” and „-'a” is disappearing from some speakers, or at least it disappeared in my speech. I don't think I pronounce "Dania" and "dania" differently, nor I hear any characteristic that would tell me that the genitive of „dynia” is „dyni” and not „dynii”. The only pair I can hear the difference is "cj/sj" vs "ci/si" (which is still recognized in the orthography, unlike the other in nominative).
I think -ji, and -ii sound almost the same if that helps. (so like English yi )
I think that it's just pronounced longer that single "i" but it's not separated - it should be one sound.
Depends what Julius you are referring to. If it was a modern man, it would be "Juliusie". But historical figures (like Caesar, the three popes, the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, etc.) may have their names translated to "Juliusz". In that case the locative is "Juliuszu".
