The Question of Adjective Positioning

The placement of Polish adjectives has long been something of a mystery to me. Although I have grown accustomed to where adjectives should go, I am not always sure what the reasoning is behind their placement. It seems some Poles aren't always exactly sure, either (see my friend's comment at the bottom of this text).

I asked a professor of Polish recently, and she explained it like this:

"Swan's grammar has a short explanation as to adjective noun order:

- qualitative before noun
- specifying type (książka kucharska - cookbook) after noun

There is also the issue of names: Teatr Nowy, Gazeta Wyborcza, etc., but if there is more than one than one adjective, then one goes before, and one goes after: Polskie Towarzystwo Językoznawcze [Polish Linguistics Society].

There are set expressions where the noun comes first, however: dzień dobry, piśmo święte [Bible], etc."

Biały kot.
Icebooter at the English language Wikipedia

According to the Polish Wikipedia:

Usually the adjective comes before the noun, but when the relationship is more direct, the adjective often occupies the second place: duże państwo [big country], potężne państwo [powerful country], but państwo polskie [Polish state]; biały kot [white cat], wesoły kot [happy cat], but kot domowy [house/domestic cat]; długa wojna [long war], ostatnia wojna [last war] but wojna domowa [civil war].

Zazwyczaj przymiotnik występuje przed rzeczownikiem, ale kiedy związek jest ściślejszy, przymiotnik zajmuje często drugie miejsce: duże państwo, potężne państwo, ale państwo polskie; biały kot, wesoły kot, ale kot domowy; długa wojna, ostatnia wojna ale wojna domowa. 

Thinking of examples, I asked my friend Szczepan why "multiple-grain bread" (chleb wieloziarnisty, or as in the photo below, wielozbożowy) would have the adjective after the noun, when other types of bread have the adjective before the word "bread" - and he answered: probably because it describes the very specific type of bread, but generally speaking -- I don't really know... (chyba dlatego, że określa bardzo szczegołowy typ chleba, ale ogólnie nie bardzo wiem). 

 He also explained more about adjectives we were using for milk:

With milk, it varies: if it is just the definition, then krowie mleko or kozie mleko (on the carton, it will say "kozie mleko", etc. Generally they don't write on the carton that it is cow's milk. If the adjective "goat" or "cow" is after the noun, then we are asking ONLY from what animal it came from, and the emphasis is on that.

Z mlekiem jest różnie: jeśli jest tylko definicja to krowie mleko albo kozie mleko (na pudełku będzie napisane "Kozie mleko", etc. O krowim mleku nie pisze się na pudełku, że jest krowie, generalnie. Jeżeli kozie lub krowie jest na drugim miejscu, to pytamy TYLKO od jakiego zwierzęcia jest, akcent na to właśnie pada.

And then even the Poles seem to be confused sometimes! Here at the top it says there is horse milk for sale (probably it should say "mare's milk", to be technically correct) - alongside all the other dairies:

When actually what they meant was that it was from the dairy in Końskie, which has a cute little cow animation on their website's banner. The adjective from "Końskie", however, is actually "Koneckie":

The next question is - what does the rest of their bag of milk say? More on milk in a later post.