Disappearing of collective numerals as a testament of socio-cultural changes (on the example of students’ language)

Abstract

This paper consists of two parts – theoretical one and analytic one. In the first part the socio-cultural background of changes taking place in the Polish language during several dozen years was drawn and the subclass of collective numerals was characterized taking into account inflection, semantics and syntax. In the second part, the results of the survey conducted among students were presented. Its aim was to explore the competition of using collective numerals among the young generation of users of the Polish language. The analysis of the data collected allowed to draw a conclusion that collective numerals are a disappearing group of words. What is more, the users of the Polish language create many ways of avoiding the use of collective numerals, such as: using nouns derived from numerals (e.g. trójka), using analytical constructions (e.g. dwie pary spodni), replacing collective numerals by cardinal numerals or using nouns which do not connect with collective numerals.