Breakdown of Patrzę przez okienko i widzę stare drzewko.
i
and
stary
old
widzieć
to see
przez
through, across
patrzeć
to look
okienko
little window
drzewko
little tree
Questions & Answers about Patrzę przez okienko i widzę stare drzewko.
Why is the diminutive of okno spelled okienko instead of just "oknko"?
To make it easier to pronounce! If you just added the neuter diminutive suffix -ko to the root okn-, you would get "oknko", which is hard to say. Polish often inserts an "e" (and softens the previous consonant with an "i") to break up heavy consonant clusters, turning okno into okienko.
How is the diminutive drzewko formed from drzewo?
This one is much simpler than okienko. You just take the base of the neuter noun drzewo (which is drzew-) and add the neuter diminutive ending -ko, giving you drzewko (little tree).
Why don't the endings of okienko and drzewko change here, even though they are the objects being looked through and seen?
Both the preposition przez (through) and the verb widzieć (to see) require the Accusative case. However, okienko and drzewko are neuter nouns. For all neuter nouns in Polish, the Accusative case looks exactly the same as the basic dictionary form.
Does making a noun a diminutive change its gender, and is that why we use stare?
The suffix -ko creates neuter diminutives. Since the base word drzewo is already neuter, it simply stays neuter as drzewko. Because it is a neuter noun in the Accusative case, the adjective for "old" must take the neuter Accusative ending -e, giving us stare drzewko.
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