Breakdown of Renesans trwał od piętnastego do szesnastego wieku.
do
to
od
from
piętnasty
fifteenth
szesnasty
sixteenth
wiek
century
trwać
to last
renesans
the Renaissance
Questions & Answers about Renesans trwał od piętnastego do szesnastego wieku.
Why do the ordinal numbers and the word wieku end in -ego and -u here?
This is because the prepositions od (from) and do (to) both require the genitive case. Since both numbers modify wieku (century), the whole phrase takes the masculine genitive endings: -ego for the adjectives (piętnastego, szesnastego) and -u for the masculine inanimate noun (wieku).
Why does the word wieku only appear once at the end?
In Polish, just like in English (from the fifteenth to the sixteenth century), you do not need to repeat the noun if it belongs to both adjectives. You could technically say od piętnastego wieku do szesnastego wieku, but dropping the first wieku is much more natural and common.
The Renaissance is a completed historical period, so why use the imperfective verb trwał?
The verb trwać (to last) naturally focuses on the continuous process and the duration of time, rather than a single completed action. Because it emphasizes this continuous stretch of time, it is almost always used in its imperfective form, even when talking about historical periods that are completely over.
I know five is pięć and six is sześć. How do they change to become the ordinal numbers piętnastego and szesnastego?
To form the teen numbers, Polish adds -naście, which causes slight spelling changes: pięć loses its ć to become piętnaście, and sześć becomes szesnaście. To make them ordinal words (fifteenth, sixteenth), they take adjective endings like -y in the nominative (piętnasty, szesnasty). In this sentence, they take the genitive -ego ending.
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