podstawowa

Podstawowa is the feminine singular form of the Polish adjective podstawowy, meaning basic or fundamental. It agrees with feminine nouns in gender, number, and case. The masculine form is podstawowy, the neuter form is podstawowe, and the plural forms vary by grammatical gender and number. In everyday language and in technical writing, podstawowa is used to denote something essential, rudimentary, or forming a foundation, as in podstawowa wiedza (basic knowledge), podstawowy zestaw (basic set), and szkoła podstawowa (elementary school).

In lexicography and linguistics, the phrase forma podstawowa (lemma) refers to the base or dictionary form of a word. For adjectives, the lemma is typically the masculine singular nominative form, so podstawowy would be listed as the base form, with its feminine and neuter variants shown as inflected forms. The concept helps organize vocabulary in dictionaries and language resources.

Etymology traces podstawowa to the stem podstaw- derived from podstawa, meaning base or foundation, with the adjectival suffix -owy used to form podstawowy. The feminine form podstawowa is therefore a direct inflected variant of the same root, used when describing feminine nouns.

Usage notes: podstawowa commonly appears in contexts ranging from everyday speech to education, science, and media. It contrasts with more specific terms such as podstawowa wiedza versus zaawansowana wiedza (basic versus advanced knowledge), and it participates in standard Polish adjective morphology, where it changes to reflect the gender and number of the noun it modifies.