Zanikanie odmiany liczebników głównych jako przykład zmian we fleksji nominalnej współczesnej polszczyzny

DISAPPEARANCE OF PRINCIPAL NUMERALS AS AN EXAMPLE OF LINGUISTIC CHANGES IN THE NOMINAL INFLECTION IN CONTEMPORARY POLISH Based on the example of principal numerals, the author of the article discusses the changes that have been taking place in Polish nominal inflection at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. As a result of the simplification of numerals, by taking over the functions of collective and ordinal numerals by principal numerals, both in official and colloquial Polish, the phenomenon of a significant increase in the occurrence of principal numerals is noticed. At the same time, the increasing tendency to move away from inflection means that, in multiword principal numerals, none of the parts is inflected. This trend is also extending to single-word numerals. As a result, the simplification of the system of grammatical cases of principal numerals is heading towards their being indeclinable, or, more precisely, towards the introduction of the nominative form in place of objective case forms.