Grammar of Contemporary Polish [Paperback]

Oscar E. Swan (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Slavica Pub (May 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0893572969
• ISBN-13: 978-0893572969
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #278,041 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #27 in Books > Education & Reference > Foreign Languages > Instruction > Polish
  • #32 in Books > Education & Reference > Foreign Languages > Polish

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Master at work !, April 29, 2006

By 

kjellnilsson (Orebro Sweden) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Grammar of Contemporary Polish (Paperback)

Professor Swan is a top-rank language textbook writer, and by his excellent Polish grammar proves that he can write a useful no-nonsense grammar as well. Many "modern" grammars content themselves with giving the relevant paradigms of noun and verb inflection for a few typical words, and leave it up to the reader to find out which of the core vocabulary items go by which pattern. Swan has understood that the learner of grammar needs to learn not only the paradigms but also acquire a useful working vocabulary of the new language. In fact, he is so generous with examples to the rules that the whole thing reminds me of the excellent turn-of-the-century (I refer of course to ca 1900-1940!) series of language manuals called Konversations-Grammatik by the publisher Julius Groos in Heidelberg (for a prime example, consult the Rumaenische Konversations-Grammatik by Karl Tagliavini from 1938).
Swan's book begins with chapters on sounds, spelling, pronunciation and morphophonemics, pp. 7-42. These are excellent although clearly intended for speakers of American English, as his explanation of Polish /o/ shows: "Polish o is pronounced more or less halfway between the o in English poke on the one hand and pot on the other hand, with the brevity of the latter" (p. 9). Given the tendency of Americans to pronounce an original short o almost like a long "ah"(like when they say "ahn tahp" for "on top", which Britons never seem to do.) Would it not be better to use the well-defined unequivocal IPA symbols instead of unclear, at best approximate references to English sounds? In this case to just write that Polish o is a markedly open vowel, and give the IPA symbol for it (the "c with the opening turned backwards"). But IPA, which the rest of us use has never been en vogue with American textbook writers. To describe Polish consonants, IPA would have been even more useful. After all, this IS a grammar intended for ACADEMIC use.
Nound declension (p. 43-125) and verbs (p. 215-326 make up the bulk of the book. I looked especially at his description of verbal aspect and found it to be very illuminating (p. 269-297) with clearly laid-out guidelines for the choice of aspect, although I think that for the lexical studies of verbal aspect pairs, Asmus Soerensen's Verbalverzeichnis, Berlin, 1900 is still the indispensable tool (or is there an English equivalent out there somewhere ?).
The "use of cases" chapter (p. 327-373) is another delight in this grammar, and the last chapter, "On simple sentences syntax" (p. 374-423) also comes with many titbits, like the extremely useful "List of important little words" (p. 411-415), again fulfilling the Konversations-Grammatik intentions of the author.
At the end he gives useful glossaries of English grammar terms as well as Polish ones and some useful indices.
It should be noted that this is a strictly synchronic description of the language system: if you wonder why, for instance, the genitive of the name Jan Matejko (famous 19th century painter) is not Jana Matejka, as it would be in other Slavic languages, but Jana Matejki, you will have to look elsewhere (e.g. Henri Grappin, Histoire de la flexion du nom en polonais, Wroclaw, 1956).
I saved the best for the end: you can access this grammar for free at [...sorry, folks, I tried several times to enter the address here but each time I do that, Amazon deletes it.... but you can find it by googling for it ! ] and download it on your USB memory. But it would be a bargain even for the 30 USD charged by Amazon for the hardcopy format.
Hats off to Professor Swan for his immense services to all learners of Polish.

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Polish Grammar Book, May 19, 2010

By 

Wrzos (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Grammar of Contemporary Polish (Paperback)

This book is excellent, one of the best that involves Polish grammar. It does cost more than other grammar books, but that's because it is much more detailed and very thorough with the information. Definitely worth the extra few bucks.