Studia Językoznawcze

The vocative is a specific grammatical case. For years, it has been ascribed various functions and the possibilities of integrating it into the sentence have been widely discussed. Additionally, opinions still are voiced that it gradually disappears in the Polish language. The purpose of this work is to identify and describe functions associated with the vocative by the contemporary users of the Polish language. Their beliefs concerning the possible usage of this grammatical case are put under analysis. The subject of investigation is the linguistic awareness – a notion synonymous with linguistic competence – of the vocative’s function declared by the contemporary Poles. The research material was collected from a survey carried out among 268 inhabitants of Kraków in the years 2016–2017. The results of the analysis were divided according to two groups: the younger generation (143 students aged 12–13 years) and the older generation (125 employees and the retired aged 24–81 years). The author-designed method of description was used, taking into account the current state of research into the usage of the vocative case in the Polish language. Three general categories of responses were identified, pointing to particular functions of the vocative: expressive, addressative, and impressive. The results of the study demonstrated that the respondents are most clearly aware of the addressative function, related mainly to calling or addressing somebody or something. They definitely less frequently quote the expressive and impressive functions. The obtained responses imply also that the vocative is related to the rest of the utterance in particular situations.