Nouns that decline only in the plural
Mar 05
Despite the fact that Polish can inflect pretty much everything – and nouns if nothing else enjoy a particular richness of declination options – there are groups of nouns that behave rather unusually. Today we’ll have a look on one of them – nouns that only decline in the plural. Yes, that’s right – the words in today’s list don’t change their form in the singular, no matter the case you fancy to use them in.
What do these words have in common? For one thing, they’re easy to recognize because of their –um ending. Even though the list isn’t comprehensive, you shouldn’t have problems recognizing new words of this type when you see them.
Secondly, all of them follow the same easy pattern for building the nominative plural form: the ending changes from –um to –a. Here’s how the other case forms are created, on the example of the word liceum – high school.
Nom. licea
Gen. liceów
Dat. liceom
Acc. licea
Ins. liceami
Loc. liceach
Voc. licea!