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Evolution of discourse markers in Czech: case study of vždyť
Doischer, Tomáš ; Zíková, Magdalena (advisor) ; Beneš, Martin (referee)
The main goal of this paper is to analyze one specific Czech discourse marker, vždyť, both from the synchronic and diachronic position. In the context of this analysis, some questions of linguistic methodology are discussed. Most of this analysis focused on its semantic properties, which were described using the NSM methodology (Natural Semantic Metalanguage). NSM allows its users to describe the meaning of grammatical words in natural language, thanks to which a researcher can formulate the expression's function without having to use a complicated and obscure terminology. The resulting definition of vždyť is compared to the description found in Czech dictionaries, whose authors, unlike my approach, describe the meaning of vždyť in terms of multiple senses, polysemy. Apart from semantics, a small part of the chapter is dedicated to the description of other properties of vždyť, e. g. phonetics. In the diachronic analysis, a hypothesis is formulated about the emergence of vždyť from the originally temporal marker vždy, explaining it on the basis of conversational implicatures. That is illustrated by some examples of vždy from the earliest available linguistic data from Czech. I then describe the meaning of vždyť in Old Czech, while speculation about its further development is hindered by the lack of adequate...
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Characteristic of hesitation sounds in Czech and the level of their perceptional intrusiveness
Průchová, Tereza ; Machač, Pavel (advisor) ; Zíková, Magdalena (referee)
This thesis deals with the issue of hesitation sounds in spoken Czech. The theoretical and the descriptive part focuses primarily on the description of hesitation sounds as one of the relatively common features of a spontaneous speech, their typology, mapping possible pragmatic functions they may have in different communication situations, and the tendency of their positioning in a discourse. By using a perception test, the aim of the practical part is to discover how the perceptional intrusiveness of hesitation sounds in the form of filled pauses is perceived by a listener, compared to silent pauses. The hypothesis behind this experiment is based on the assumption that silent pauses will be perceived as more intrusive than filled pauses. The statistically supported results confirm this hypothesis; however, due to a relatively narrow range and a low number of respondents and the specific choice of test items, such conclusion cannot be generalized beyond the frame of the given material. Key words: hesitation sound, level of intrusiveness, perception test
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Syllable nucleus duration as a signal of foreign accent by L2 Russian speakers of Czech
Pinchuk, Oleksandr ; Zíková, Magdalena (advisor) ; Confortiová, Helena (referee)
The bachelor thesis 'Syllable nucleus duration as a signal of foreign accent by L2 Rus- sian speakers of Czech' focuses on realization of word accent in the Czech speeches of Russian native speakers. Through comparison of the duration values of syllable nuclei in selected words among Czech and Russian speakers, we tried to find a possible link between the vowel duration and perception of the Russian realization of accent as a marked one. This thesis consists of a theoretical and a practical part. In the theoretical part, which has been worked out on the basis of the professional literature studied, we deal with factors affecting the syllable accent and function of vowel duration in Russian and Czech. The practical part is de- voted to analysis of audio recordings, which comprises selection of words for instrumental analysis, manual segmentation of phones in selected words and processing of data on vowel duration. Based on the results obtained, we further compared the duration of vowels among Czech vs. Russian speakers, depending on position of the vowel in a word, phonological length of the vowels and the syllable accent. The realization of selected words among Russian speakers was confronted with the results of a perceptual test. Analysis of the audio recordings showed that the syllable nucleus...
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Word-level pronunciation reduction in spotaneous speech and identification of speech units
Tomanová, Eliška ; Machač, Pavel (advisor) ; Zíková, Magdalena (referee)
The thesis deals with the issue of word-level pronunciation reductions and with the identification of reduced word forms. The first part of the thesis focuses on the degree of the phonetic features' stability and presents an analysis of selected words from dialogues with a high degree of spontaneity. The results of this research confirm that the most stable features of speech are the fricativness of sibilants and / /ř , voice, the formant structure of vowels and the nasality of the nasal consonant. The closure of the explosives and the quality of vowels prove, on the other hand, to be relatively unstable features. The second part of the thesis focuses on perceptual tests, which are used to verify the identifiability of the selected words in relation to the degree of reduction and the type and complexity of the context. Furthemore, the thesis tries to determine the phonetic features, which are under given conditions relevant for the appropriate identification of words. The research proved, that the most often noted phonetic features correspond to the above mentioned features with high stability. Moreover, it was also confirmed, that the recognizability of words depends on the degree of their reduction and the type of the context: strongly reduced words without any context tend to be very difficult...
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Word-level phonetic variability in public speaking
Kodytková, Carmen ; Machač, Pavel (advisor) ; Zíková, Magdalena (referee)
This thesis concentrates on phonetic variability of words in public speaking. In the first part of the thesis, the aim was to summarize the existing knowledge about the characteristics and principles of spontaneous speech, about phonetic features of Czech speech sounds and about factors that may influence type and degree of reduction. Then we summarize the results of older studies done on other languages (esp. on Dutch and German) and outline a possible application of results from word variability analyses. In the second part of this thesis we look at five Czech words - protože, prostě, myslím, samozřejmě and určitě. We set several groups of variants according to the degree of reduction for each word, we examine stability of their phonetic features and survey whether position (initial, medial, final and I = F) in intonation unit and/or speed of pronunciation of the chosen word has an influence on degree of reduction. Five to eight hierarchical groups of variants were set for each chosen word. Stability of phonetic features in four types of speech sounds (vowels, nasals, unvoiced plosives and unvoiced sibilants) is in line with the existing observations (e.g. Machač, 2004). Speed of pronunciation of the word had an influence on the degree of reduction in words protože, prostě, samozřejmě and určitě,...
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Plosives in Czech: temporal characteristics and variability in realization
Šimek, Jaroslav ; Machač, Pavel (advisor) ; Zíková, Magdalena (referee)
The aim of this diploma thesis is to closely investigate and describe selected phonetic properties of Czech oral plosives [p t ť k b d ď g] in normal speech. The re- search focuses mostly on temporal characteristics in various contexts; moreover, we deal with the possible manners of plosive articulation in Czech, including non-canonical realizations. Another important part of the present study is a comparison with earlier studies. In the domain of temporal characteristics we examine the influence of various contexts on phone duration. The contexts include: phonetic context, speaker gender, the position of the plosive in the stress unit or articulation rate. We also examine a possible connection between the duration of the plosive and its realization. In the part that deals with the manner of articulation we focus on the individual phonetic properties, for which we investigate especially the conditions and degree of their stability. Furthermore we describe the specific plosive articulations in certain pho- netic contexts and some alternative realizations of certain plosives. The speech material used is mostly spontaneous. All the speakers are non- professionals from various TV broadcasts. Keywords: plosives, duration, phone segmentation, phonetic properties, pho- netic context, gender, articulation...
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Future and perfective present in the Slavonic languages
Zíková, Magdalena ; Starý, Zdeněk (referee) ; Elšík, Viktor (advisor)
The diploma thesis Future Tense and Perfective Present in the Slavonic Languages deals with the main grammatical device of a future tense category in the Slavonic languages. The choice of analyzed grammatical means was determined by their grammaticalization as a future marker in Czech. Thus, the diploma thesis concentrates on three grammatical means of a future time reference: periphrastic (analytical, inchoative) future (budu varit), perfektive present (uvarím) and synthetic future (pujdu). Each of the grammatical devices is subjected to a conceptual and typological analysis and serves as a means of a subtle areal classification of the Slavonic languages. Special attention is paid to temporal reference of perfective present. The categorization of diverse temporal meanings conveyed by perfective present is preceeded by a brief introduction to an aspect theory and main interpretations of the Slavonic aspect are presented. A crosslinguistic comparison of various temporal meanings exhibited by perfective present shows that the most variable set of meanings of this aspectual form is manifested in Czech.
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