On the genitive of personal names in Polish

[alice]

A friend of ours gave us a calendar of watercolour paintings of Kraków. In the box for each day are two names, which it's safe to assume are saints' days or something similar. Further investigation reveals that the names are in the genitive case, and that some end in -ego (Antonego, Ambrożego), which surprised me because I thought this ending was only used with pronouns and adjectives. Can someone enlighten me?

[johanpeturdam]

Polish has some names which end in -y and which are declined as adjectives. Antony being one of them. I can't speculate on their origins though.

Slovak also has an adjectival declension for masculine animate nouns ending in -i, -í, -é, -ě, etc. that is endings not commonly used in Slovak. So names like Harry, Jenő etc. would follow this declension. This is based on the common noun kuli 'coolie'. A similar applies to feminine nouns ending in -á, like gazdiná (contriver, housewife, housekeeper, homemaker), princezná (princess) and certain geographical and city names like Trstená, Handlová etc.

[Ser]

Maybe there's some "underlying noun" (if we can even argue such a hing) like "day", so originally it was "the day of (X saint)", and now the convention is just to say "of (X saint)"?[/pure speculation]

[Mecislau]

Not actually knowing the fine details of Polish declension, two possibilities come to mind based on Russian and what I know of Slavic historical linguistics, since you didn't provide the context for the words.


1) In Russian those two names are rendered Антоний and Амвросий, both of which are nouns but look like they could also be adjectives, which I believe is also the case in Polish. In Russian the proper genitives would be the nominal Антония and Амвросия (not the adjectival *Антонего and *Амвросего), but it wouldn't be hard to imagine the Poles reinterpreting these as adjectival in declension.

2) Slavic languages (well, at least Russian and Proto-Slavic; I don't know about the other modern languages) can productively convert personal names and various other nouns into possessive adjectives (Иван > иванов "belonging to Ivan", Наташа > наташин "belonging to Natasha", папа > папин "belonging to [my] father"), Бог > божий "belonging to God", etc. I don't know if Polish can do this or not, and you haven't provided any context to help determine if this is the case.

[linguoboy]

1) In Russian those two names are rendered Антоний and Амвросий, both of which are nouns but look like they could also be adjectives, which I believe is also the case in Polish. In Russian the proper genitives would be the nominal Антония and Амвросия (not the adjectival *Антонего and *Амвросего), but it wouldn't be hard to imagine the Poles reinterpreting these as adjectival in declension.

This was my first thought as well, and I did find hits for "Antonego", "Ambrosego", "Anatolego", etc. with a Google search. But there weren't very many of them, so perhaps this usage is restricted to certain registers.

If anyone would like to see examples in context, here's a Polish calendar of liturgical feasts: http://www.kkbids.episkopat.pl/index.ph ... rM=6&Poz=1. Besides those mentioned, you also have "Wincentego" (nom. Wincenty), "Bazylego" (Bazyli), "Hilarego" (Hilary), "Jerzego" (Jerzy), etc.

What I find particularly amusing is that Slavic Christian names of this form are already derived from the Greek genitive. So, in a sense, they're forming a genitive of a genitive.

[alice]

The plot thickens! Every day on the calendar has two names on it, with a very few exceptions like Christmas. I don't know enough about Polish culture to make a decent guess about what the days have to do with the names; is there a tradition of name-days or similar in Poland?

FWIW, Ambrożego appears on 7 December, with Marcina.

[Przemysław]

In modern Poland those are imieniny [pl. tantum] 'name day'. Many first names have more than one day assigned and I was taught that you chose the closest day after your birthday -- my imieniny are on 13 IV (Przemysława, Hermenegildy). Traditionally, imieniny involve a small party for your family, friends, colleagues.

PS It's Antoni : Antoniego.

PSII As for the -i, -y nouns, yes, they're declined as adjectives. It includes both proper names: Platini : Platiniego and common names: koniuszy : koniuszego 'equerry'. The same goes for the pronounced -e nouns: Goethe : Goethego.

[linguoboy]

The same goes for the pronounced -e nouns: Goethe : Goethego.

That is awesome. "Nietzschego" FTW!

[Przemysław]

The same goes for the pronounced -e nouns: Goethe : Goethego.

That is awesome. "Nietzschego" FTW!

Correct. And it's pronounced the same as niczego 'nothing.GEN'.

[Acid Badger]

The same goes for the pronounced -e nouns: Goethe : Goethego.

That is awesome. "Nietzschego" FTW!

Oh I like this one!