National Repository of Grey Literature 15 records found  1 - 10next  jump to record: Search took 0.01 seconds. 
Relation between Evaluativity and Indefiniteness on the Example of Compound Indefinite Pronouns in Czech
Rybová, Martina ; Martínek, František (advisor) ; Berger, Tilman (referee) ; Šimík, Radek (referee)
1 Abstract (English) The thesis deals with the relation between the complex semantic concepts of evaluativity and indefiniteness. The core of the thesis is a corpus-based case study of indefinite pronouns in Czech. Whether or not the indefinite pronouns serve except as indefinite markers also as markers of evaluative meaning, is left aside in the relevant literature. The present studies are only restricted to a few notices about this possible relation. The discovering of such relation follows an assertion of many evaluativity researchers that the expressions with such a function can accumulate in a clause or in a context. As a result, a new methodological approach, so-called lexicography-driven collocation analysis, is proposed here. This approach is based on the comparison between the definition of meaning, which is offered by a monolingual dictionary, and between meaning which a collocate obtains in contact with an in- definite pronoun. With respect to both the collocate is marked with a value from the evaluativity scale. These values enable a comparison, both regarding the evaluative or neutral meaning of the item and regarding the polarity of the evaluative meaning (positive vs. negative). The assignment of these values is subject to criteria defined in advance. In addition, morphosyntactic construc-...
Malleability of semantic representations and factors which influence it
Janáková, Alžběta ; Chromý, Jan (advisor) ; Šimík, Radek (referee)
The work critically reflects on the study by Shiri Lev-Ari titled "Social network size can influence linguistic malleability and the propagation of linguistic change", which argues that the size of a social network directly affects the flexibility of semantic representations. This study will be conceptually replicated in the Czech language, considering additional factors that may influence the flexibility of semantic representations. The work will take the form of the first phase of a registered report, and pilot testing will be conducted. The theoretical part of the work will provide a comprehensive overview of the literature on the relationship between language and social networks, the methodology of studying social networks, literature on lexical entrainment, and factors influencing language accommodation. Additionally, the work will focus on processes of language learning, lexical entrainment, structural priming, self-monitoring, and methods of its measurement, as well as adapting communication to the dialogical partner. The methodological part will present a detailed and well-elaborated design for experimental research, which will be used to test the presented hypotheses of the study. The experiment will be piloted for testing. Key words: Psycholinguistics, semantics, social networks, personality
Scientific opinions on so-called critical period in language acquisition
Fenclová, Tereza ; Saicová Římalová, Lucie (advisor) ; Šimík, Radek (referee)
Diploma thesis deals with the question of how the so-called critical period (sensitive period) in language acquisition is conceptualized in the literature. The thesis attempts to summarize the current views on the so-called critical period and compare them with Lenneberg's form of the theory (Lenneberg 1967). It also examines the arguments that have been used to support and oppose the existence of the critical period (e.g. the issue of the innateness and modularity of language, language deprivation), identifies the thematic areas in which the notion of a critical period is applied (e.g., first language acquisition, second language acquisition, bilingualism, language acquisition in deaf people), and seeks to capture the specifics of the theory in each of these areas. The selected topic area, the critical period in the second language context, is treated in more detail. Keywords: critical period, language acquisition, L1, L2
L1-acquisition of epistemic modality in Czech
Schejbalová, Edita ; Šimík, Radek (advisor) ; Smolík, Filip (referee)
The thesis aims to investigate the interpretation and acquisition of the Czech modal verb muset in children, focusing on the developmental stages experienced. Muset is unique, conveying multiple (abstract) modal meanings, making its acquisition challenging for children. This thesis examines the deontic (obligation) and epistemic (level of certainty) meanings of muset using the picture-preference task developed by Cournane (2020; 2022). The research explores whether Czech children undergo similar acquisition phases to those observed in previous research on similar verbs in English and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (BCS), with a preference for deontic interpretations around age 3 and an overcommitment to epistemic meanings around age 5. Additionally, the study analyzes the morphosyntactic conditions that facilitate epistemic interpretations in adults: tense of muset and aspect of its infinitive complement. Interviews were conducted during the task to gain deeper insights into participants' reasoning. The results reveal similar acquisition patterns in Czech, English, and BCS children, with a deontic preference at age 3 and overcommitment to epistemic interpretations at age 5. Adults' interpretations are influenced by past tense, while aspectual impact is minimal in Czech. The findings suggest potential...
The Acquisition of Possesives in German by Czech Native Speakers
Lindnerová, Anna ; Mertins, Barbara (advisor) ; Šimík, Radek (referee)
The Acquisition of Possesives in German by Czech Native Speakers Anna Lindnerová Abstract The aim of this thesis is to describe and analyze how Czech native speakers interpret German possessives. The theoretical section provides a detailed overview of the possessive systems in both languages and compares them as well as the concepts of second language acquisition, language transfer, and bilingualism. Additionally, the section explores conceptions of possessive pronouns in several textbooks of German as a foreign language. The translation research conducted in this thesis focuses on how speakers of Czech with German as their second language handle the asymmetries between the possessive pronoun systems of the two languages when translating German sentences with the possessives ihr and sein into Czech. The data reveals that while Czech native speakers understand the fundamental rule of reflexivization of possessives, they often disregard it when translating from German into Czech. To further explore this issue, an experiment was conducted to test how both monolingual speakers of Czech and bilingual speakers of Czech and German interpret the referents of possessives in given sentences. The empirical findings of both parts of the research indicate that several variables play a role in the interpretation of...
Left branch extraction and basic word order in Czech
Kořánová, Daniela ; Šimík, Radek (advisor) ; Veselovská, Ludmila (referee)
The topic of this bachelor's thesis is left branch extraction (LBE) in Czech. LBE is a non- projective construction created by the division of the nominal phrase, more precisely by the movement of the left constituent (e.g., Kteroui jsi viděl [ti dívku]NP?). The construction is limited, e.g., the left branch cannot be extracted from an NP that is complement of PP. More importantly, LBE is restricted by the word order. Using the analysis based on the phase theory and the theory of cyclic linearization (which proved to be sufficient), LBE is only possible if no scrambling of constituents happens (i.e., anti-locality problem does not occur). The two main factors that influence the word order are the syntactic function and the animacy (humanness) of the constituents. Based on the results of the conducted experiment, the more important factor for the ordering of words is the humanness. If this is taken out of the equation (i.e., the humanness of both subject and object is balanced), the word order is based on the syntactic function. For the possibility of the canonical word order to be based on the humanness, the analysis reflecting the uniformity of theta-assignment hypothesis (UTAH) and base-generating human object on a higher SpecvP to a nonhuman subject agrees with the results. For clause with LBE...
The expression of speaker's bias in Czech polar questions
Staňková, Anna ; Šimík, Radek (advisor) ; Chromý, Jan (referee)
This MA thesis focuses on Czech polar questions, especially on the description of their syn- tactic-semantic interface. Besides that, I discuss an additional layer of pragmatic meaning (i.e., bias), which expresses the speaker's expectations about the possible answers based on their beliefs or on their immediate context. The question's bias is signaled by a number of formal means: word order (interrogative vs. declarative), polarity (positive vs. negative question) and particles (e.g. copak). The interpretation of negation in polar questions is by no means trivial, as it gives rise to two types of reading: inner and outer. I propose explicit syntactic and semantic analyses of negative polar questions in Czech using the generative and formal semantic approach. To capture the difference between inner and outer negation, I use Repp's (2013) theory and the verum/falsum operators. I also propose a syntactic analysis of ver- bal movement to the initial position in Czech interrogative sentences. The thesis, therefore, aims to characterize how the formal means interact with the question's meaning (including bias). I ran a naturalness judgment task to empirically test the hypotheses based on previous accounts of polar questions and my own analyses. The experimental set-up consisted of mul- tiple parts...
Czech Retroactive Infinitives
Genserová, Barbora ; Šimík, Radek (advisor) ; Saicová Římalová, Lucie (referee)
(in English): The aim of this thesis is to provide a comprehensive description of the Czech construction with retroactive infinitives, such as Ta skříň potřebuje opravit ('That cupboard needs fixing') and Nepotřebuju od tebe pomoct ('I don't need help from you'), which express a passive meaning through an active form of the verb. These constructions are therefore considered hidden passives. The theoretical part describes the general possibilities of using infinitives and infinitive constructions, with an emphasis on constructions with semi-lexical matrix verbs. It also focuses on the possibility of expressing passive perspective through canonical passive and other secondary diatheses, particularly the agent-patient and agent-addressee/recipient diatheses, as the relationships between these actants are also central to retroactive infinitives. Additionally, it summarizes the current state of research on retroactive infinitives and their theoretical description. The subsequent empirical part presents an analysis of sentences with retroactive infinitives based on the material from the Czech National Corpus, analysing their properties in comparison to active and canonically passive constructions. In some characteristics, retroactive infinitives resemble passives, particularly in reflexivity, subject...
Morphological and syntactic characteristics of expression sto (hundred), tisíc (thousand), milion (milion) and miliarda (bilion)
Nováková, Anna Josefína ; Adam, Robert (advisor) ; Šimík, Radek (referee)
The presented thesis aims to provide an analysis of morphological and syntactical characteristics of expressions sto "a hundred", tisíc "a thousand", milion "a million" and miliarda "a billion". The first part deals with the description and characteristics of numerals in specialized literature, with focus on the explored expressions, and it then proceeds to define the research questions (e. g. to what extent are the forms frozen; forms of the noun denoting the counted object (JPP) etc.), which are then explored in the practical part, using corpus analysis. The data used in the analysis are taken from the SYN v8, ORAL v1 and ORTOFON v2 corpus. The analysed sample contains 1 000 of the sto lemmas and the same number of the tisíc lemmas. For the expressions milion and miliarda, the analysed sample was half as large. The analysis showed that the range of numeral and substantive characteristics of the expressions varies: the expression sto "a hundred", has the most prominent numeral characteristics: a high degree of constancy of form (e.g., do sta korun "within one hundred crowns", do sto čtyřiceti mil "within one hundred and forty miles", na dvě stě kilometrech "at two hundred kilometres"), a predominant adjectival congruence of numeral (e.g., bylo tam osm set lidí "there were eight hundred people")...
Negation of adjectives
Melicharová, Kristýna ; Kováříková, Dominika (advisor) ; Šimík, Radek (referee)
(in English): The topic of this bachelor thesis is negation of adjectives in Czech, applied with the use of negative prefix ne-, which is added to the affirmative variant of the adjective. The thesis aims to answer whether in the case of negative variants of adjectives there should be seperate dictionary entries (in the case of the corpus seperate lemma). The chosen method is an analysis of adjectival counterparts at the level of collocations, meanings, morphology and syntax. Analysed data were collected from the synchronic representative corpus SYN2020 of the Czech National Corpus. The obtained collocations were afterwards compared with the meanings in two explanatory dictionaries (SSJČ and SSČ). The results of the analysis showed many subtle nuances of meaning between the affirmative and negative variants. There were also cases of different syntactic usage or complete changes of meaning. On the other hand, for some of the negative variants there was no change in meaning. This suggests that when defining separate dictionary entries for negative variants, each adjectival pair should be treated individually.

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