Norma českého jambu
The standard Czech iamb

Summary/Abstract: The article corrects and develops the generative description of the standard Czech iamb, which was originally formulated by Miroslav Červenka. Special attention is paid to the beginnings and ends of verses. The article is based on statistics on the rising beginnings of non-versified sentences, which are lengthier and more diverse as regards types of text than Vilém Mathesius’s statistics. The author models the probability of rising beginnings in the Czech iamb (assuming the validity of the metrical norm everywhere else, but taking into consideration peripheral nonmetrical stresses). Surprisingly, the article ascertains that the highest admissible accentuation of the first position of iambic tetrameters and pentameters is ‘only’ 67 per cent (a little more in the alexandrines), so that it is not necessary to use complex context restrictions (that is, restrictions concerning the whole verse). The author ascertains the noniambic character of some poems that are still considered iambic (for example, Neumann’s ‘Rok chudého na slunci’ and some of Hořejší’s verses). The rule that prefers accented syllables to unaccented does not apply at the (strong) end position of the acatalectic iamb of a number of poets (for example, Hálek’s, Gellner’s and Seifert’s iambic tetrameter).

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