Breakdown of Król ustanowił syna swoim następcą.
syn
son
swój
one's own
król
the king
ustanowić
to establish
następca
successor
Questions & Answers about Król ustanowił syna swoim następcą.
Why is swoim następcą in the Instrumental case?
Verbs of appointing, electing, or naming, like ustanowić (to establish or appoint), take a direct object in the Accusative case (syna) and the assigned role or title in the Instrumental case (swoim następcą). You can think of the Instrumental here as taking the place of the English word 'as'.
Why use swoim instead of jego here?
Swój (here in the Instrumental form swoim) is the reflexive possessive pronoun. It is used when the possessor is the subject of the sentence. Because the king is the subject and it is his own successor, we must use swoim. If we used jego, it would imply he was establishing a successor for some other man.
The word for successor is następca. Since it refers to a man, why does its Instrumental form end in -ą?
Następca is a masculine personal noun, but because it ends in '-a' in the Nominative (just like mężczyzna or kolega), its declension partly mimics feminine nouns. All Polish nouns ending in '-a' in the Nominative take the -ą ending in the Instrumental, regardless of their gender.
What is the imperfective pair for the verb ustanowić?
The imperfective form is ustanawiać. Because the king's act of establishing his successor is a single, completed event, the sentence uses the perfective past tense form ustanowił.
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