Breakdown of Gdy dorosły się rozpłakał, wszyscy zamilkli.
wszyscy
everyone / all (the)
dorosły
adult
gdy
when (conjunction, = kiedy, more written)
zamilknąć
to fall silent
Questions & Answers about Gdy dorosły się rozpłakał, wszyscy zamilkli.
How does the combination of roz- and się change the verb in rozpłakał się?
This lesson's focus is the circumfix roz- ... się, which is added to verbs to express a sudden, intense burst of an action or losing control to an emotion. While the base verb płakać just means 'to cry', rozpłakać się means 'to burst into tears'.
Why is the word dorosły acting as the noun 'the adult' when it looks like an adjective?
Dorosły is a substantivated adjective, meaning it functions as a noun while keeping adjective endings. Because of this, it declines exactly like a regular adjective. If this sentence were about multiple adults bursting into tears, the subject would change to the plural form dorośli.
What is the infinitive of zamilkli, and why doesn't it have a -ną- in this past tense form?
The infinitive is zamilknąć (to fall silent), which is the perfective partner to milczeć (to be silent). Many Polish verbs ending in -nąć indicate a sudden or momentary action, and they often drop the -ną- syllable in the past tense. This gives us zamilkł (he fell silent) and zamilkli (they fell silent).
Could we use the imperfective verb milczeli here instead of zamilkli?