Neurčité dovětky v češtině

Author(s): Tomáš Novotný,Markéta Malá / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2018

The paper explores Czech ‘general extenders’, such as nebo jak?, nebo něco, a takový věci, i.e. vague structures loosely appended at the end of an utterance, typical of informal conversation. The method can be described as contrastive (identifying Czech structures corresponding to English general extenders) and corpus-based, drawing on both monolingual and parallel corpora. The interpretation of the discourse functions of general extenders is highly dependent on the context shared by the interlocutors, and the functions often combine and overlap. The authors therefore give a tentative description of the communicative functions of Czech general extenders, based on their occurrences in the ORAL2013 corpus of spoken Czech. The results of the analysis are in general agreement with Overstreet’s description of discourse functions of English general extenders, encompassing both ideational and interpersonal functions. Some of the functions expressed by English extenders (such as ‘soliciting agreement’) were not attested in the Czech data, however. The Czech translation counterparts of English general extenders suggest that some functions associated with extenders in English tend to be rendered in Czech by other means.

Záhadný morfém [-t] a slovesná paradigmata v sarkézské normanštině

Author(s): Martin Neudörf / Language(s): Czech Issue: 2/2020

In this article, we present one of the principal findings in the field of Sark Norman (or Sarkese) verbal morphology. The data on which the present article is based were obtained during three seasons of field research on the island of Sark in 2016, 2018, and 2019, with the help of the last four native speakers of Sark Norman, and via analysis of now lost idiolects recorded in the 20th century. We focus primarily on the verbal paradigms of the present and preterite indicative and the related system of desinences with regard to 1SG. In the first part, after an introduction to the context, we summarize the occurrence of the morpheme [-t] in 1SG verbal forms, which, although recorded in several secondary sources in the past, had never been systematically analysed prior to the present study. In the following part, we compare documented conjugation patterns with the verbal paradigms presented in Liddicoat (1994), demonstrating fundamental differences in our respective observations. Finally, for each of the main verbal groups and several subgroups, we can present at least a partial paradigm based on our data, to illustrate where and when the morpheme [-t] occurs as a standard 1SG verbal desinence in Sark Norman.

K vývojovým tendencím vybraných obouvidových sloves v češtině

Author(s): Martin Janečka,Martina Navrátilová / Language(s): Czech Issue: 2/2020

The theoretical part of this article is focused on verbal aspect, particularly on biaspectual verbs in Czech. The creation of a perfective verb from a biaspectual verb by means of prefixation is described. Within corpus research, usage of biaspectual verbs in a perfective context is explored in contrast to its perfective correlate. Then we focus on syntactic restrictions, considering the usage of certain biaspectual verbs, and on the fact that the aspect of biaspectual verbs cannot be identified out of context. Czech biaspectual verbs develop over time and they can also lose their biaspectuality over time. The perfective forms of biaspectual verbs were verified for the following verbs: adaptovat, definovat, organizovat, faulovat, kontaktovat, realizovat, exportovat, publikovat, kompromitovat and korumpovat. Our research indicates that half of the selected verbs cannot be used in their perfective forms in time-subordinate sentences, and that in this type of sentence they are replaced by their prefixed perfective correlates. This finding leads us to the conclusion that in certain contexts, Czech biaspectual verbs can lose their biaspectuality over time.

Fotbalový výsledek v metaforice české a bulharské sportovní žurnalistiky

Author(s): Aleksandar Pavlov / Language(s): Czech Issue: 2/2020

The article describes linguistic features in Czech and Bulgarian sports journalism, focusing on thefinal scores and outcomes of football matches. The analysis shows examples of automation, defamiliarization and expressivity, the use of military and academic vocabulary, intertextuality and metaphors. As the solutions presented in Czech and Bulgarian are compared, the article contrasts themethods used in general-interest newspapers with those employed in specialized sports periodicals,as well as distinguishing the stylistic features of particular sports-journalism genres. The paper alsoinvestigates the variation of genres in sports journalism (football features in comparison to classicalfootball reports) in relation to the competition on the media market. Another topic presented is thephenomenon of infotainment, which attempts to inform and entertain at the same time, highlighting the human factor in sport and its emotional effect upon the recipient.The article describes linguistic features in Czech and Bulgarian sports journalism, focusing on the final scores and outcomes of football matches. The analysis shows examples of automation, defamiliarization and expressivity, the use of military and academic vocabulary, intertextuality and metaphors. As the solutions presented in Czech and Bulgarian are compared, the article contrasts the methods used in general-interest newspapers with those employed in specialized sports periodicals, as well as distinguishing the stylistic features of particular sports-journalism genres. The paper also investigates the variation of genres in sports journalism (football features in comparison to classical football reports) in relation to the competition on the media market. Another topic presented is the phenomenon of infotainment, which attempts to inform and entertain at the same time, highlighting the human factor in sport and its emotional effect upon the recipient.

Diachronic dynamics of a stem-derivational aspect system: how cluster analysis helps discover patterns

Author(s): Björn Wiemer,Joanna Wrzesień-Kwiatkowska,Szymon Wrzesień-Kwiatkowski / Language(s): English Issue: 23/2021

Starting from the assumption that the Slavic aspect (perfective : imperfective) opposition builds on stem derivation, we investigate changes in the inventory of so-called aspect triplets in Czech since 1750. Triplets arise from aspect pairs consisting of an imperfective simplex stem and its perfective derivative whose prefix overlaps in meaning with a semantic component of the simplex (Natural Perfectives; Janda et al. 2013). If such pairs acquire another imperfective stem via suffixation, aspect triplets result (e.g., dělit ⇒ roz‑dělit ⇒ rozděl‑ova‑t ‘separate’). Many triplets “survive”, but they do not form a homogeneous class w.r.t. some parameters. Based on a database for the period 1750‒2017, we explore frequency-based patterns in the formation and persistence of Czech aspect triplets; these patterns are established for six subperiods by employing time series clustering with non-Euclidean distance measures. We then inquire how consistently such patterns are associated with their “age” and part-of-speech provenance. Moreover, the obtained clusters provide a starting point for case studies of selected typical representatives that examine changes in lexical semantics, collocations, and argument coding.

Akademické počátky české jazykovědné bohemistiky

Author(s): Věra Dvořáčková / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2015

For more than three decades, Czech linguists strove to establish an institution devoted to Czech linguistic bohemistics in the area of theoretical research as well as the practical care of the Czech language. That did not happen until 1946, when Ustav pro jazyk cesky (‘Institute for the Czech Language’) was established, with the Kancelar Slovniku jazyka ceskeho (‘Office for the Dictionary of the Czech Language’) considered as its first direct predecessor. The Office, however, was primarily focused on lexicography (even though the concept of standardisation, regional dialects, orthography, orthoepy, stylistic characteristics of words, etymology and other disciplines also required attention, too, given the comprehensive approach to the preparation of an interpretative dictionary), and was included in the Institute as its Department of Lexicography. The establishment of the other departments of the Institute was then influenced by the – sometimes non-systemic – activities of the Class III. committees, and sometimes joint Class I, III and IV committees, of the Czech Academy which either wholly or in part dealt with the linguistic aspects of the matter. The Department of Dialectology at the Institute was able to build upon the earlier research carried out by the Committee for Dialectology, the Department for the Study of New Standardised Czech Language followed up on the activities of the Committee for Orthoepy, the Department of Language History used the materials produced by the Committee for the Study of the Old Czech Bible and the Committee for Photocopying Manuscripts and Old Prints. Work on gathering linguistic papers was transferred smoothly from the Committee for Bibliography to the Department of Bibliography at the Institute. The Cabinet of Phonetics, established at the Institute in 1953, directly based its work on the papers produced by the Committee for Phonography, Committee for Orthoepy and Committee for Phonetics. The Department of Onomastics, included in the Institute for the Czech Language no earlier than in 1969, was a direct successor of the Committee for Topography.

Pragmatické aspekty v popisu textové koherence

Author(s): Lucie Poláková,Pavlína Synková / Language(s): Czech Issue: 4/2021

The study presents a qualitative analysis of pragmatic discourse relations as annotated in Czech texts of the Prague Dependency Treebank. A detailed study of these relations (as opposed to semantic relations) with their widest contexts reveals a considerable diversity and shows some space for improvement in the annotation scheme. We address and evaluate approaches dealing with subjectivity and inferential processes in the analysis of coherence. The starting points of the analysis are the extent and the way of author involvement in relation to the content and structuring of a text, and an analysis of inferences. Based on these considerations, we propose a possible finer division of relations marked as pragmatic into subjective epistemic ones, subjective ones with a relation to a speech act, relations with complex inferences, and corrupted coherence (because of too much of an inferential load or even articulation ineptitude of the author). The new perspective on these phenomena aims at an enhancement of the descriptive apparatus for a coherence-oriented corpus analysis.

Forvo.com: Pohled fonetický

Author(s): Pavel Machač,Michal Škrabal / Language(s): Czech Issue: 4/2021

In this article, we examine the audio material collected by crowdsourcing methods in the Czech section of the portal forvo.com, which is unique worldwide in terms of the number of languages,audio recordings and users. Our aim is to assess the possible representativeness (with respect to the standard norm of Czech and/or naturalness) of the recordings for phonetic research and also for the purposes of non-native lay users. We selectively focus on perceptually conspicuous, mostly hypercorrect deviations from natural pronunciation (when the assimilation of voicing or place of articulation does not occur), but we also deal with phenomena that are non-orthoepic yet established in spontaneous speech (such as frequent phonetic reductions and devoicing). These deviations from natural speech behaviour can be attributed chiefly to the unnatural speech situation that lay speakers find themselves in when they are being recorded, and their adherence to the written form of the recorded entries. Based on the findings, we evaluate the Czech part of the forvo.com portal as being rather unusable for ordinary phonetic research, and as being usable,though only with caution, to a non-native lay user, with no claim to full representativeness.

Nový diachronní pohled na tzv. zvratné pasivum v češtině

Author(s): Roland Wagner / Language(s): Czech Issue: 4/2021

Review of the book Pergler, Jiří (2020): Česká reflexivní deagentizace v diachronním pohledu. Praha: Filozofickáfakulta Univerzity Karlovy.

Na prahu zásadní změny paradigmatu ve výuce češtiny

Author(s): Jakub Žytek / Language(s): Czech Issue: 4/2021

Review of the books Štěpáník, Stanislav (2020): Výuka češtiny mezi tradicí a inovací. Praha: Academia and Štěpáník, Stanislav – Hájková, Eva – Eliášková, Klára – Liptáková, Ľudmila – Szymańska, Marta (2020): Školní výpravy do krajiny češtiny: Didaktika českého jazyka pro základní školy. Plzeň: Fraus.

Emoji neboli emodži

Author(s): Anna Černá / Language(s): Czech Issue: 4/2021

The paper deals with the noun emoji or emodži. The originally Japanese word was borrowed into Czech via English (emoji), and the Czech transcribed spelling emodži is gaining ground as well. This uninflected noun is still somewhat unstable with respect to gender: it is used most often as a neuter noun but also as a masculine noun vacillating between animacy and inanimacy.

Z jazykové poradny

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): Czech Issue: 4/2021

This article shows the answer of the language counselling center of the Institute of the Czech language of Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic on the question on semantic correctness of colloquial syntagma "stoleté výročí" (*"centenial anniversary").

Čeština ve světě: Slovo úvodem

Author(s): Marek Nekula / Language(s): Czech Issue: 5/2021

Paraguayská krajanská čeština, jazyková atrofie a emergentní gramatika

Author(s): Lenka Zajícová / Language(s): Czech Issue: 5/2021

The article aims to present the language of the Czech immigrant community in Paraguay, especially with regard to the issue of language attrition. It first presents the origin, development and current state of the Czech community in Paraguay, then the circumstances of research into their language,and then the basic characteristics of the language of the community and the causes of its variation.The variation is illustrated by the example of two investigated phenomena: innovations in the reflexive possessive pronoun and in nominal morphology. The article attempts to point out their replaceable role of communication for the emergence of regularity in changes, and the fact that the processes in attriting languages tend to speak in favor of the concept of emergent grammar.Rather than a conclusion, however, this is a suggestion of a possible perspective in the research on attriting languages, as the limited scope of the article does not allow the necessary comparison to be made with data from other situations of language attrition.

Čeština v Německu – jazyk v kontaktu a izolaci v „generaci exil“

Author(s): Marek Nekula / Language(s): Czech Issue: 5/2021

The paper deals with the language of Czech speakers born in socialist Czechoslovakia who emigrated with their parents before 1989 and grew up in the Federal Republic of Germany. Due to the dominance of German, their first language, Czech, quite quickly became a secondary language,and their second language, German, the primary one. The study takes a closer look at the idiolect of one female speaker selected from a large number of interviews in order to determine the characteristics of her Czech shaped in the period of limited contact with her home country before 1989,or in the early 1990s. This period’s turbulent economics made the prospect of returning unlikely,and the lack of modern communication technologies did not allow the contact with her home country to the extent known today. The characteristics of her Czech are systematized using studies on Slavic languages in migration, including studies on the so-called heritage language, i.e., the language of the second migration generation. In empirical studies of languages in migration, early migrants’ language is sometimes analysed together with that of heritage language. Thus, it turns out that in comparison with the language spoken in their home country, which is the starting point of acquisition(and comparison), the heritage language is characterized by an imperfect acquisition and insufficient stabilization of already acquired phenomena, which leads to their erosion.

Jazykové ideologie a jazykový management československých emigrantek a emigrantů v Bavorsku

Author(s): Aneta Bučková / Language(s): Czech Issue: 5/2021

In order to describe and explain the differences in the form of language of different types of bilingual speakers, it is important to analyse not only the language, but also the language ideologies and language management, which reflect and co-determine its use. This article deals with language ideologies and language management in narrative interviews with German-Czech bilinguals who emigrated from the Czech part of Czechoslovakia to the Federal Republic of Germany in the years1964–1986. The respondents are divided into late ethnic repatriates of Sudeten German origin(Spätaussiedler*innen) and migrants without German roots (Migrant*innen). Against the background of the different linguistic biographies of these groups of respondents, the article reconstructs the different forms of their linguistic ideologies and language management. The language ideologies shaped by family background have a crucial impact on the language management and the resulting linguistic as well as social practices of the respondents. They also correlate with the frequency and nature of language contact phenomena in both Czech and German.

Z jazykové poradny

Author(s): Not Specified Author / Language(s): Czech Issue: 5/2021

This article shows the answers of the language counselling center of the Institute of the Czech language of Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic on two questions – the new word saunola and on the ortography of the word sebevědomý / sebe-vědomý (self-confident).

Die tschechische Sprache im Gymnasialwesen der deutschsprachigen Stadt Brünn (Brno) zwischen 1848 und 1918

Author(s): Maria Schinko / Language(s): German Issue: 2/2021

The present study focuses on the linguistic change in the grammar school system of Brno at the end of the Habsburg monarchy. The research interests lie in the influence of the establishment of Czech -speaking grammar schools on the linguistic distribution of the student population as well as the effects of the language policy measures of 1880, 1897 and 1905 on the status and prestige of the second national language within the classroom. It can be shown that, on the one hand, there was a linguistic -national segregation of the students within the grammar school system of Brno from 1867, but that on the other hand, interest in the second national language, Czech, increased continuously through the equality (attempts) in the area of the official language until 1918. Both results can be seen as the consequences of a gradual “normalization” of the formerly conflicting diglossic language situation due to the increasing status of Czech.

Jména pro nalezence z babyboxů

Author(s): Žaneta Dvořáková / Language(s): Czech Issue: 4/2022

Between 2006 and 2021, 231 babies were anonymously abandoned by their parents in the so-called baby hatches or baby boxes placed around the Czech Republic. First names and surnames are given to these children by nurses in hospitals or mostly by Ludvík Hess, the founder and organizer of the project of baby boxes in the Czech Republic. First names are chosen after nurses or doctors in hospitals, sponsors of the project, and Hess’s friends. Sometimes the waifs are given the name corresponding to the respective name-day in the Czech calendar. Assigned surnames are motivated by the time (day, holiday, season) when, or the place (toponym) where, the child was found. However, these names are informal and temporary. The official first name and surname of the child must be decided by a court. Names can then be changed again after adoption.

Výbor z díla Olgy Müllerové: Čtyřiačtyřicet let výzkumů dialogu a mluvené češtiny

Author(s): Petr Mareš / Language(s): Czech Issue: 4/2022

Revíew of Müllerová, Olga (2022): Dialog a mluvená čeština: Výbor z textů [edited by Jana Hoffmannová, Lucie Jílková, and Petr Kaderka]. Praha: NLN.