Subjektová rezultativa v češtině ve srovnání s ruštinou

Author(s): Markus Giger,Markus Giger / Language(s): Czech Issue: 2/2015

Subjective resultatives (SR) are constructed from intransitive verbs that denote a change of state. In Czech, a participle in -l- is often used. Russian is said to have only very restricted SR as most intransitive non-reflexive verbs do not form a “passive” participle in n-/t. Indeed, in parallel texts from the Czech National Corpus, Russian very often uses other constructions where Czech uses a SR construction. However, the evidence also shows that at least in some cases Russian past active participles in -(в)ш- can be found in SR constructions. This formal type has been practically omitted in the literature so far. Evidence from the Russian National Corpus indicates that semantically it seems rather close to Czech SR. Its productivity, restrictions and other parameters will have to be subject to further investigation — as well as many aspects of Czech subjective resultatives.

Slovesa odvozená od adverbií jako periferie slovotvorného systému (na materiálu Českého národního korpusu)

Author(s): Ivana Kolářová / Language(s): Czech Issue: 2/2015

There are not many verbs in Contemporary Czech that are derived from adverbs. They are considered almost a marginal part of the Czech word-formation system. Nevertheless verbs that are derived from adverbs are differentiated (a) from the point of view of style: they are stylistically neutral, while some of them are also literary or colloquial; (b) from the point of view of frequency: some of those verbs are very frequent in the texts of the Czech National Corpus, others are seldom used. Sometimes it is difficult to recognise that the verb has been derived from an adverb: there may be a problem finding a connection between the meaning of the verbs and the adverbs and also between their formal structures in Contemporary Czech.

Možnosti a úskalí jazykového popisu na základě formálního lingvistického aparátu

Author(s): Roland Wagner / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2016

This text introduces the reader to the recently published description of Czech syntax by J. Panevová et al. (2014) and takes the opportunity to add some remarks on its position within the Czech linguistic tradition on the one hand, and in the wider context of syntactic thought outside the Czech Republic on the other. The advantages of a multistratal approach to analyzing passives and other diatheses, over the surface-oriented approach in traditional Czech syntactic descriptions such as Šmilauer (1966), are demonstrated in more detail. Furthermore, I show how the theory of control is adapted from the government and binding framework to a syntactic framework based on dependency. In addition to the merits of the given analyses, several problematic issues are pointed out, especially relating to resultative diathesis and to the distribution of controlled pronouns in the deep structure.

K významu substantiv s převahou plurálových tvarů

Author(s): Vojtěch Veselý,Vít Michalec / Language(s): Czech Issue: 3/2016

The paper shows that a predominance of plural forms of a noun over its singular forms often indicates a semantic distinction between them. We argue that, in the case of nouns whose plural forms express collective meaning and nouns whose plural forms tend to be interpreted as mass names, this semantic distinction is of a grammatico-lexical nature. Plural forms expressing collective meaning may be semantically specified with a phrase containing a categorial noun (jedny cigarety = jedna krabička cigaret ‘one pack of cigarettes’). Due to their semantic relationship to plural forms with a non-collective meaning, the opposition between singular and plural morphology is not fully neutralized (as in the case of pluralia tantum), but only partially so. The close relationship between plural forms inclined toward a mass interpretation (maliny ‘raspberries’; piliny ‘sawdust’) and proper mass nouns is proven by the fact that they are combined with the same type of quantifiers and measure phrases. The paper also shows how the semantics of nouns with predominantly plural morphology is reflected in the Academic Dictionary of Contemporary Czech (Akademický slovník současné češtiny or ASSČ) which is currently being compiled.

Syntaktická struktura komplexních predikátů v češtině

Author(s): Václava Kettnerová / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2017

In this paper, I describe the syntactic structure formation of Czech complex predicates with light verbs. I limit myself to a central type of Czech complex predicates, i.e. to the complex predicates composed of a light verb and a predicative noun expressed in the direct object. I demonstrate that in the deep syntactic structure, both the predicative noun and the light verb are characterized by their own valency complementations. In the deep structure, several nominal and verbal valency complementations are in coreference. I show that this coreference plays a crucial role in the distribution of valency complementations in the surface structure of complex predicates. Moreover, I introduce principles governing the surface structure formation of Czech complex predicates. On the basis of syntactically distinctive properties of complex predicates (the correspondence of the nominal ACTor with some of verbal complementations and the mapping of the semantic participant ‘Causator’ onto some of verbal complementations), I distinguish four types of complex predicates in Czech. Finally, I outline the open questions concerning the expression of the nominal ACTor and its coreference.

Recenze: Alena Bohunická: Metaforika činnostného aspektu jazyka. Bratislava: Univerzita Komenského, 2014. 123 s.

Author(s): Irena Vaňková / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2017

Fonotaktická analýza obsahu slabik na okrajích českých slov v mluvené a psané řeči

Author(s): David Lukeš,Pavel Šturm / Language(s): Czech Issue: 2/2017

This study aims to provide and analyze a representative list of Czech initial syllable onsets and final codas along with their frequencies of occurrence in running text (token frequencies) and in the vocabulary of unique word forms extracted from it (type frequencies). The frequency data are important because many experiments have demonstrated that phonotactics is not categorical, but rather gradient in nature. Importantly, the study analyzes and compares both spoken and written texts, using the Czech National Corpus, and the two modalities are hypothesized to yield different outcomes. All words in the sample were transcribed phonemically and analyzed. A general preference was found for phonotactic structures that are simple in the context of the attested inventory, and the two corpora differed most in the repertoire of complex onsets/codas (some sequences being unique to one modality) as well as in their respective frequencies. The results are discussed in relation to previous studies of Czech phonotactics, and evaluated with respect to implications for phonological theory, focusing on spoken/written and type/token comparisons.

Paradigma budoucího času ve španělštině — tři různé pohledy na problematiku distribuce budoucího času jednoduchého a opisného ve španělštině

Author(s): Iva Novotná / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2016

The article focuses on the synthetic future (FS: “hablaré”) and the analytic future (FA: “voy a hablar”). It presents three perspectives on the use and the distribution of these two forms based on existing studies. The first perspective is represented by studies which focus on linguistic factors and explain the rise in frequency of the analytic future as a result of the grammaticalization of ir a + infinitive. The second perspective assumes that the FS and the FA are used in different semantic-pragmatic contexts and the third perspective points to different situational meanings of the FA and the FS.

Lepší vrabec v hrsti nežli holub na střeše. Víceslovné lexikální jednotky v češtině:

Author(s): Milena Hnátková,Tomáš Jelínek,Vladimír Petkevič,Alexandr Rosen,Hana Skoumalova,Marie Kopřivová,Pavel Vondřička / Language(s): Czech Issue: 17/2018

In this paper we present a multi-faceted typology of multiword expressions (MWE) in Czech, associated with a representative lexicon of MWEs (under development), whose entries reflect this typology. The typology and the lexicon are useful for many reasons, e.g. for lexicography, for teaching Czech as a foreign language, for dealing with important natural language processing tasks such as automatic morphological disambiguation and parsing, identification of MWEs in corpora of Czech, word sense disambiguation and semantic disambiguation. The typological classification has also a theoretical significance, since MWEs are interesting entities straddled between lexicon and grammar. In addition to various types of idiomaticity we record the variability of MWEs in morphology, syntax (including word order), and in the lexical setting of their components. We also take into account the usage of MWE (fragments) which still refer to the entire MWE.

Slovní spojení až tak v současné mluvené češtině

Author(s): Lucie Jílková / Language(s): Czech Issue: 17/2018

The article answers the following research question: In what meanings/functions does the Czech expression až tak appear in spoken language? The subject of the analysis are the records of the Czech expression až tak in the corpora of the spoken Czech language DIALOG, ORAL and ORTOFON. The analysis reveals that the most prevalent usage of the expression is a measure expression in negative turns. One of the detected functions has not been reflected in linguistic works so far: the usage of the až tak expression as an independent dialogue turn. In these cases the expression enounces a) an extent of the speaker’s degree of surprise/astonishment about what was said in the previous turn; b) an expression of surprise/astonishment itself, i.e. až tak in these cases bears the meaning of Really? Are you kidding me? I can’t believe it! etc.

Kdo, kdy a proč skáče komu do řeči aneb překryvy ve spontánní mluvené češtině

Author(s): Zuzana Komrsková,Petra Poukarová / Language(s): Czech Issue: 17/2018

Overlaps are very frequent in spontaneous communication. Intentional breaking in somebody speech can be motivated by a recipient’s effort to take the floor and replace a speaker (competitive type) or to help the speaker when searching the right word for example (cooperative type). Unintentional overlaps can be found in the transition-relevant places most frequently. The specific kind of overlaps are continuers, mostly used by a recipient in order to demonstrate “I am still listening to you”. In this paper, we ask the question what can influence the number and the types of overlaps in the speech where the same speaker speaks with two different people. The used data come from a corpus of spontaneous spoken Czech ORTOFON. We suppose that the number and types of overlaps can be influenced by the communication situation more likely and that the recipient breaks when understanding is threatened and, therefore, communication goal might not be achieved.

Několik poznámek k synonymii a frekvenci příčinných spojek

Author(s): František Štícha / Language(s): Czech Issue: 17/2018

In Czech, five synonymous causal conjunctions (protože, neboť, jelikož, poněvadž, ježto) – corresponding to the English because – are used. These five causal conjunctions differ in style and in frequency of use. Four of them (neboť, jelikož, poněvadž, ježto) are stylistically marked and only protože is stylistically unmarked and consequently used more frequently. Until now, Czech grammarians have labeled neboť a coordinative conjunction and separated it from the other four ones in explaining causal relations in complex sentences. In fact, the five conjunctions have the same function to express a causal relation, except for neboť being positionally restricted to postposition. In this paper, I argue that whenever the conjunction neboť is used in a text it is synonymous with the other causal conjunctions. Therefore, this separation of neboť from protože, jelikož, poněvadž, ježto in grammar descriptions does not correspond to the function of these conjunctions. So far, neboť has been the second most frequent causal conjunction and together with protože used more frequently than the remaining three conjunctions. This article focuses on the idiolectical use of only one or two of the five causal conjunctions. Some Czech authors and translators into Czech mainly or solely use only one or two of all causal conjunctions and neglect the others. What is unpredictable and strange is that sometimes the less frequent conjunctions poněvadž and jelikož are strongly preferred.

O idiomatickém charakteru pojmenování v mutační kategorii

Author(s): Petr Kos / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2018

In Dokulil (1978, 1986), the idiomaticity of a naming unit is understood as a discrepancy between the structural and lexical meanings of newly coined words. This discrepancy is viewed as a characteristic feature of new naming units formed within the mutational onomasiological category. The paper aims to describe the nature of this discrepancy using an onomasiological model primarily based on Štekauer (1998) and Grzega (2007) with its origins in Dokulil’s theory. The model comprises three main levels, namely perceptual, onomasiological, and onomatological, and at all three levels there are aspects that contribute to the idiomaticity of the resulting naming unit. At the perceptual level it is the metonymical character of the salient features; at the onomasiological level it is mainly the extent to which individual features find lexical expression, and at the onomatological level it is predominantly the incorporation of metaphor and metonymy.

Negative-mutational verbs and presupposition in Czech

Author(s): Luboš Veselý,Vojtěch Veselý / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2019

The aim of this contribution is to analyze the meaning of the Czech verbs zůstat ‘stay, remain’, nechat ‘keep, leave, let’ and zapomenout ‘forget’. We will argue they are mutational verbs sui generis: their positive forms express a denial that a mutational action has been carried out, whereas the negative forms express the carrying out of a mutation. Since such behaviour is contrary to prototypically mutational verbs, we call zůstat, nechat and zapomenout negative-mutational verbs. This construal makes it possible to maintain the assumption that a presupposition of an initial situation is a sufficient condition for the mutational meaning. If combined with an infinitive complement, the verbs zůstat, nechat, zapomenout belong to the class of implicative verbs (zapomenout is negative-implicative). In this use, the given verbs retain the status of negative-mutational verbs provided certain conditions imposed on the infinitive are fulfilled.

Onomaziologické přístupy ke slovotvorbě

Author(s): Petr Kos,Jana Kozubíková Šandová / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2020

The paper aims to offer a description of major onomasiological theories of word-formation. It mainly focuses on the purely synchronic approaches of Dokulil (1962) and Štekauer (1998). A comparative analysis shows that although these approaches are perceived as part of the same onomasiological tradition, they differ in a number of major aspects and should thus be seen as fully autonomous theories. In order to provide a full account of the major onomasiological approaches to word-formation, the paper also describes the most important aspects of those that are on the borderline between word-formation, diachronic onomasiology, and lexicology, those by Blank (1997) and Koch (2001). In the conclusion of the paper, we suggest possible directions which further research in onomasiology may take.

Fonetické redukce a vyjadřování jistotních postojů v insubordinačních strukturách

Author(s): Pavel Machač,Mirjam Fried / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2021

The study tests the hypothesis that phonetic reductions in spontaneous interaction contribute interpretive clues which aid in assigning different meanings to an ostensibly single grammatical pattern. We focus on two variants of insubordinate clauses introduced by jestli ‘if/whether’, each associated with a specific evidential meaning, as attested in the corpus of conversational Czech (Ortofon): a speaker’s uncertainty about the truth of a given proposition vs. a speaker’s certainty that the proposition is invalid. Using phonetic feature analysis of the relevant words (jestli; nevím), we establish the degree of reduction by combining a word reduction rate with the number of segments and syllables that are actually pronounced. The analysis reflects a relationship between the degree of reduction and the functional split: highly reduced instances signal the interpretation of a speaker’s uncertainty, while low reductions signal negative certainty. These findings also suggest broader methodological and theoretical consequences, including the issue of adequate, multi-layered representational models of spontaneously produced language.

To be or not to be? Or — to not be? Dochází ke změně v postavení anglické záporky not a infinitivního to?

Author(s): Jakub Sláma / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2021

The paper notes that while grammars and other linguistic works assume that not precedes the infinitive marker to in English, one can quite often encounter the reverse ordering, to not. The second section provides an overview of the relevant literature. The third section compares spoken data from the British National Corpus and the Spoken BNC2014, and analyzes the written data from the Corpus of Historical American English, concluding that the frequency of to not (relative to not to) has indeed been rising significantly in recent decades. The fourth section attempts to identify some factors underlying this change, most importantly chunking and potential semantic differentiation. It is suggested that chunking might be an especially important factor affecting the change, but further analysis is needed, relying on more advanced statistical methods.

Vertikalismus na španělsko-portugalském pomezí: leonština a mirandština

Author(s): Jan Mrva / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2021

In this article we present to the Czech reader for the first time the concept of verticalism or linguistic verticalization as a process of language shift and language change, first introduced by the linguists Salmons (2005) and Frey (2013). The theory aims to clearly describe the transition of self-government functions on the community level into the hands of a superior political entity. In our case, we approach it primarily from a sociolinguistic point of view, where the community is represented by a minority language and the specific superior political entity by a majority language. We applied this verticalization theory in a very interesting area: Western Asturian-Leonese languages, Mirandese and Leonese, which are spoken in Portugal and Spain. Although these languages are genetically very closely related, each of them is at a different stage of a co-officialization process, which is involved in determining the degree of verticalization. Field research in the described areas yielded results based on the experience of bilingual speakers as reported in questionnaires and interviews that completed the final picture of the ongoing verticalization process.

Finská a česká slovesa pohybu ve vzájemném kontrastu

Author(s): Petra Hebedová / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2021

In the article I compare expressions of translational motion in Finnish texts and their Czech translation. The semantic analysis of verbs of motion is based on Talmy (2001, 2003) and I establish which components of a motion event (path, direction, goal, figure, manner) are essential when expressing motion events in the two languages and by what means they can be expressed. I also compare the results of my analysis with Talmyan typology of satellite-framed and verb-framed languages. I conclude that in Finnish many frequent motion verbs express aspects of path together with adverbial expressions, whereas in Czech verbs express manner more often than in Finnish. Finnish and Czech also use differing anchorings of the direction of motion — in Czech the direction is anchored with respect to explicitly mentioned surroundings; in Finnish deictic motion verbs are in frequent use and also several means of anchoring may be used in one clause (for example by a deictic motion verb and an adverbial or by several adverbials).

Vliv pandemie koronaviru na změny ve slovní zásobě tuniské francouzštiny

Author(s): Jaromír Kadlec / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2021

The article describes and analyses the changes in Tunisian French vocabulary that were brought about by the Coronavirus pandemic. The common language borrows lexical units from academic language and foreign languages, particularly from English language. It can be observed that the usage frequency of commonly seldom used expressions is growing as well as the number of occasionalisms. However, there are far fewer units borrowed from academic and from English language in Tunisian French than in French used in France. The number of occasionalisms is also significantly smaller.