Syntaktické dílo Vladimíra Šmilauera v kontextu vývoje české lingvistiky 20. století
The syntactic work of Vladimír Šmilauer in the context of the evolution of 20th-century Czech linguistics

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the present study is to uncover one of the fundamental aspects of the synthesis of Czech linguistic history. We attempt to do so by providing a scholarly biography and analysis of the intellectual heritage of the prominent Czech linguist, Vladimír Šmilauer, whose death we commemorate this year. Methodologically, the study is based on the conceptual framework of Giddens’ structuration theory of the acting subject in history, Jan Kořenský’s notions of the individual philosophical conception of language perception, and the principle of the importance of primary source research. Moreover, the study presents views on the evolution of Šmilauer’s scientific approach to syntax in the context of the influence of ‘psychologizing syntax’ from the beginning of the 20th century, the teachings of the Prague Linguistic Circle, the rise of quantitative linguistic approaches, post-war syntactic studies, especially in relation to the dependency description of Czech syntax, and machine translation theories. Based on the aforementioned concepts and combined with considerations of Šmilauer’s understanding of language culture, we aim to define his status in the evolution of 20th-century Czech linguistics.

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