|
|
Finite progressive forms in the academic spoken and written monologue
Bartekova, Barbora ; Malá, Markéta (advisor) ; Brůhová, Gabriela (referee)
Page | 5 Abstract The MA thesis explores finite progressive forms in the academic spoken and written monologue. The English progressive forms generally appear much less frequently than the simple forms do. In academic spoken language 90 per cent of the finite verb forms consist of simple forms and the representation of simple forms is even higher in academic written language with 95 per cent of the finite verb forms being simple. The reasons for this distribution are related on the one hand to the specific meaning of the progressive forms, and on the other hand to the restricted compatibility of the progressive forms and some semantic verb classes. The present study considers both of these aspects in the attempt to describe the progressive forms in the academic spoken monologue (university lectures) and in the academic written language (advanced students' papers). The material is excerpted from two British academic English corpora, namely BASE (spoken language) and BAWE (written texts), 100 examples from each corpus. The material is analyzed at the formal, functional and discourse levels. The formal analysis deals with the distribution of tense forms, negation, the subject (person and animacy) and clause types. The functional criteria involve the semantic features of the verb and subject, as well as the...
|
|
|
English counterparts of Czech finite subjectless clauses
Pospíšil, Jan ; Malá, Markéta (advisor) ; Šaldová, Pavlína (referee)
The thesis focuses on the English counterparts of a Czech clause type which does not exist in English - finite subjectless clauses. These Czech clauses with a verbal or verbo-nominal predicate correspond to English clauses with a subject and a predicate. The thesis describes the repertoire of means used as subjects of the English constructions, also examining the factors which influence the choice of a particular subject and predicate, and the structure of the English sentence. The most influential factors are linked with the semantic class of the clause, i.e. whether it refers to the states of the surrounding environment or physical and psychical states, whether a general human agent is implied, or whether the meaning of the clause is associated with modality. The material is extracted from the Czech-English parallel corpus InterCorp. One hundred examples of Czech finite subjectless clauses were obtained from Czech original texts (the "core" texts). The clauses extracted comprise predicates which include the third person singular of an active past participle, i.e. Setmělo se. Došlo k nedorozumění.
|
|
|
Multiple sentence as a style marker of academic prose: analysis of sentences composed of five and more finite clauses
Gregorová, Kateřina ; Dušková, Libuše (advisor) ; Malá, Markéta (referee)
The purpose of this study is to analyse the occurrence of multiple sentences in a technical text as a style marker. This work is supposed to be a continuation of a research previously done by Cerny (1998) and Pohickovci (2000), both of whom aimed at proving the appearance of complex and compound sentences as a style marker. We will focus on multiple sentences comprising at least five finite clauses (clauses containing at least five finite verb forms) in technical (academic) texts, and compare our findings with the results of the study by Polcickovci (2000). Polcickovci compared two types of texts - literary and technical. In our paper we will compare our results with those concerning the technical writings. In this paper we will be dealing with four samples of academic prose, and we will analyse the frequency, structure and characteristics of multiple sentences comprising at least five finite clauses found in each text. The reason for such a comparison is to prove that the frequency of multiple sentences comprising at least five clauses is supposed to be similar in all four texts, since they are all considered as technical texts. The work is divided into two parts. The first part contains theoretical preliminaries, the second the description of the research itself. The sample sentences (excerpts) with...
|
|
|
English counterparts of Czech diminutive nouns
Salovaara, Marie ; Malá, Markéta (advisor) ; Tichý, Ondřej (referee)
The present thesis studies English translation counterparts of Czech diminutives with a base noun form. Czech, in which diminutives are known to occur abundantly, serves as an auxiliary language in this work. The aim is to analyse English counterparts, classify them according to the non/presence of the diminutive marker as well as to outline the means of expressing diminutive meaning in English (affixes, adjectives). The thesis consists of two main parts: the theoretical background clarifies the specific features typical of diminutives and diminutive formation in both languages. The empirical part describes material and methods used in the research and analyses examples from fiction texts obtained from the parallel corpus InterCorp, which is available through the Czech National Corpus website. The corpus queries involved Czech first-grade suffixes -ek, -ík, -ka, -ko, and second-grade suffixes -eček, -íček, -ička/-ečka, -ečko/-íčko. In the case of English, the suffixes identified by Quirk et. al. (1985) were used: -ie, -ette, -ling, -let. The analysis consists of four studies, each examining English diminutive expressions from a different angle. The findings acquired in the study are subsequently summarized in the conclusion.
|
|
|
Intertextuality in academic writing: citation in soft and hard sciences
Štěpánková, Jana ; Malá, Markéta (advisor) ; Šaldová, Pavlína (referee)
Based on a corpus analysis of 72 research articles, this thesis examines citation practices in four academic disciplines, two soft (linguistics and art history) and two hard (biology and astronomy). The first part provides quantitative results for the usage of two basic types, integral and non-integral citation. The non-integral type is preferred mainly in biology (91%), whereas astronomy and linguistics do not show such strong preference. In art history, both types are used with similar frequencies. The second part is focused on integral citation and examines instances of its sub-types (verb-controlling, naming and non-citation). The third part analyses the distribution of citations in the individual sections of research articles which shows to be dependent on the structural organization of the article. In general, two tendencies have been found: in articles with IMRD structure (biology and linguistics), citations occur mainly in the introduction and discussion. In astronomy and art history, citations are almost evenly distributed across the text. The last part of this thesis is focused on reporting verbs and their semantic classification (research, cognitive and discourse acts). Astronomy shows strong preference for research acts verbs, whilst biology employs this type only slightly more often...
|
|
|
English counterparts of Czech aspectual pairs and groups of verbs
Filipová, Helena ; Malá, Markéta (advisor) ; Brůhová, Gabriela (referee)
The notion of aspect is viewed differently in English and in Czech. In Czech, aspect is an obligatory lexical-grammatical category that refers to the wholeness and completion of the action expressed by the verb. Moreover, this category interferes with the category of tense and restrains some of its usages. On the other hand, in English the category of aspect is rather dubious, and there is not even general agreement on whether it exists in the language. The opinions range from the denial of its existence to ones in which the progressive and the perfect are considered aspectual categories. A notion inseparable from the aspect is the Aktionsart that expresses more subtle modifications of the action. The Aktionsart represents a broader concept of aspectuality. In Czech, there is an aspectual pair of two verbs that differ only in the opposition of imperfectivity and perfectivity. The pair can be a basis for a group of semantically related verbs that differ in the Aktionsart, i.e. in some modification of action. However, the verbs from the group still express the basic aspectual distinction and are parts of other aspect pairs. Due to the inflectional nature of the language, Czech verbs are modified mainly by affixation to express different states of the action. English being an analytic language, the English...
|
|
|
Non-standard functions of "like" in spoken discourse
Raušová, Veronika ; Brůhová, Gabriela (advisor) ; Malá, Markéta (referee)
This thesis is concerned with the non-standard functions of the word like in spoken discourse. The aim of this thesis is to categorize the non-standard functions that had been described in the past 30 years and create a comprehensive overview, which might serve as a guideline for further research. The theoretical part of the thesis offers a compilation of standard and non-standard functions that like may represent in spoken discourse. As a non- standard function is considered the use of like as a focus marker, hedge, quotative marker and a discourse marker. The second, methodological, part describes the method of extraction of the sample of 100 instances from the COCA. The following part then contains analysis of the extracted instances, which are categorized according to the theoretical frame created in the theoretical part of this thesis. The analysis also concerns the position of like in the utterance and frequent collocations. The result of this thesis is a confirmed theoretical frame containing the non-standard functions of like extended by an additional quotative construction, more detailed description of the hedge and the focus marker like and also a confirmation that non- standard like is certainly not only an empty intrusive word but a multifunctional, ever- developing, device with which...
|
|
|
Neologisms in Thurber's selected works as translated by Radoslav Nenadál
Boučková, Aneta ; Beran, Zdeněk (advisor) ; Malá, Markéta (referee)
In this thesis I have considered neologisms and word plays from three children stories of James Thurber: The 13 Clocks, The White Deer, and The Wonderful O. The first part of the thesis is concerned solely with examples from the original. For the sake of structure I have divided the material into categories based on the motivation and processes employed in their formation: lexical and association-based in case of neologisms, and complex word plays created by shifting letters and parts of words, or working with the peculiarities of English pronunciation. The second part contains analysis of the same neologisms and word plays in Czech as translated by Radoslav Nenadál. It is structured according to the nature and result of the translation: there are neologisms translated by using extant Czech words, neologisms translated by forming a new compound, translations preserving both form and content of the original, translations preserving the form of the original but differing in the content and implications, translations preserving the content but changing the form, and translations preserving neither the form nor the content of the original. The most important conclusions based on this study's results are that The 13 Clocks differs from the other two stories in terms of the strategies employed by the...
|
|
|
Pronouns "some and "any" in conditional clauses
Bartekova, Barbora ; Malá, Markéta (advisor) ; Brůhová, Gabriela (referee)
The results of the research confirmed and further developed the theoretical foundation presented in Chapter 2 of this thesis. The primary focus of the research was based on an analysis of one hundred examples and thus its scope restrictions must be acknowledged. Nevertheless, the purpose of the thesis was to contribute to the limited resources on the interchangeablility of some* and any* in conditional constructions and the results seem to have managed that. The theoretical research showed that the assertive and non-assertive context is distinguished formally and defines contexts such as declarative and interrogative clauses respectively. However, it also indicates that the formal conditioning can be overruled semantically. It has been established that the speaker's assumption may change the polarity of certain contexts and thus influence the choice of either an assertive or non-assertive word. Our analysis showed that it is precisely the semantic implication, namely the positive assumption of the speaker that determines the occurrence of some* in a primarily non-assertive context.
|
|
|
English translation equivalents of Czech prepositions "s" and "na" (in parallel electronic texts)
Pokorná, Petra ; Malá, Markéta (advisor) ; Klégr, Aleš (referee)
The aim of this study is to analyze and describe the English translation equivalents of two Czech prepositions 'na' and 's' (including its vocalized form 'se') in texts of contemporary Czech fiction and their English translations. The study is divided into three major parts: a theoretical overview, an analysis and a conclusion. The theoretical survey consists of two parts, in which the syntactic and semantic characteristics of prepositions in general are dealt with and the status of prepositions in Czech and English is compared. The first, syntactic part provides an overview of the syntactic functions of the prepositional phrases. The semantic part describes the treatment of prepositional meanings in Czech and English grammars and focuses on the meanings attributed to 'na' and 's' in Czech grammars and monolingual and bilingual Czech-English dictionaries. The analytical part of the present paper will be preceded by a brief specification of the data on which the analysis was based. The analysis itself is divided into two parts, each of which comprises two subsections. The first analytical part compares the syntactic functions of the Czech prepositional phrases and their English counterparts, the first subsection providing an analysis of the preposition 'na', the other examining the preposition 's/se'. In the...
|
guest ::
RSS feed.