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Changing usage in modern English as reflected in R.W. Burchfield's revised 3rd edition of H. W. Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage
Kubová, Milada ; Šaldová, Pavlína (referee) ; Dušková, Libuše (advisor)
The aim of this study is to examine changing usage in Modern English as reflected in R.W. Burchfield's revised 3rd edition of H.W. Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage. The study first provides an historical overview of attitudes toward English usage and examines its treatment in contemporary usage books. The third edition of A Dictionary of Modern English Usage is then compared with earlier editions to show what areas of language usage are represented in each edition and to detect any changes in representation. The subsequent analysis is based on comparison of entries from the revised 3rd edition with entries from earlier editions. Changes in usage are demonstrated on three general entries that deal with general areas of grammar, namely complex prepositions, split infinitive and fused participle, and on twenty individual entries that reflect changes in the surface structure, specifically changes in prepositions in the construction of the type "noun/verb/adjective + preposition" and changes in the realization of verb complementation. The aim of the study is to determine areas of changing usage and consider tendencies with respect to the language system.
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The development of sentence complexity in academic written English (1904-2005): a syntactic study
Malá, Marcela ; Dušková, Libuše (advisor) ; Ježková, Šárka (referee) ; Klégr, Aleš (referee)
This study focuses on concrete evidence of changes in the syntactic structure of sentences and sentence complexity over a period of about a century. It analyses academic texts from the fields of psychology and economics. The analysis is based on explicitly expressed primary (finite) and secondary (non-finite) predications which are categorised as main clauses and finite and non-finite subordinate clauses. According to the syntactic functions of subordinate clauses in sentences four syntactic categories are considered: 1) clauses substituting for a noun phrase slot, 2) clauses substituting for an adverbial element slot, 3) clauses contributing to the complexity of noun phrases in the form of premodification or postmodification and 4) comment clauses. The findings indicate that current academic prose is less complex and more impersonal than a hundred years ago and shows a tendency towards a non-finite mode of expression. Finite clauses substituting for clause elements normally expressed by noun phrases are the only syntactic function of finite clauses in which the percentage of clauses in the modern texts increased. Non-finite clauses are used not only instead of hypotactically but also paratactically linked clauses and contribute to the structural compactness of an English sentence. The study lists the most...
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Cleft sentences in English and Norwegian
Mojžíšová, Kateřina ; Šaldová, Pavlína (advisor) ; Dušková, Libuše (referee)
The subject of this thesis is the use of the cleft construction in English and Norwegian. These languages employ a formally similar construction to focus a sentence element, but the use of the construction is not always identical. The analysis is carried out on English and Norwegian translations of Czech texts. The main aim of this thesis is to identify and analyse possible types of motivation for the use of the cleft construction. The studied types of motivation are the FSP, textual and syntactic motivation. The analysis of the FSP motivation is based on the theory of the FSP as described by Jan Firbas (Firbas 1992). The list of textual functions is based on the work of Jan Firbas (Firbas 1995) and Hilde Hasselgrd (Hasselgrd 2004). Some types of the syntactic motivation are proposed by Libuše Dušková (Dušková 1999: 319), but the types described in this thesis result from the present analysis. In addition to the motivation for the use of the construction, the thesis deals with Norwegian and English counterparts of the analysed cleft sentences. These counterparts are divided into three groups: the cleft or pseudo-cleft construction, the underlying non-cleft construction and a different construction (cf. chapter 4.4.). The purpose of the analysis is to find where the use of the cleft construction differs in...
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A contrastive study of means expressing necessity in English and Czech
Šimůnková, Renata ; Hajičová, Eva (advisor) ; Dušková, Libuše (referee) ; Huschová, Petra (referee)
The dissertation investigates the structures of the semantic field of necessity in English and in Czech on the basis of means of expression found in eight works of contemporary fiction (four English books, four Czech books and their published translations). The aim of the thesi s is first to describe the structure of the semantic field in each individuallanguage and then compare the acquired data, determine the similarities and differences and discuss the potential causes of the differences and their consequences in connection with the accurate expression of necessity in both languages. The dissertation consists of three main parts: theoretical, empirical and the conclusion. The theoretical part is outlined as a broad general introduction into the problems of modality and then specifically of necessity. Apart form the delimitation and interpretation of the general concept of modality it focuses on the means of expression of necessity used in English and Czech and their comparison. In the empirical part the individua! means of expression found in the fiction are first discussed and compared within each individuallanguage (e.g. the distinctions between must and have to, or mustn 't and can 't are discussed in detail) and then between the two languages. The conclusion offers brief summaries of the outcomes of...
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The principle of end-focus in biblical narrative
Nováková, Eliška ; Dušková, Libuše (advisor) ; Čermák, Jan (referee)
The present study attempts to outline the influence of the principle of end-focus in a Biblical narrative by means of the theory of functional sentence perspective (FSP). It focuses on different types of interaction between two word order principles: the linearity principle of FSP, which places the communicatively most important element (rheme) at the end (end-focus), and the principle of grammatical word order, which in English requires SVOAdv(s) ordering of clause elements. Following a previous research in the field carried out on contemporary fiction, the textual material is analysed from the viewpoint of the following groups: (1) a group with clauses that adhere to both principles, (2) a group displaying violation of grammatical word order, and (3) a group displaying violation of the principle of end-focus. The fourth group is constituted by the so called transformed structures (in opposition to basic structures in the first three groups), i.e. clauses which with special devices to align the clause elements in agreement with both principles (such as the passive construction). This group is treated both separately, and in relation to the other three. As the study is intended to be diachronically comparative, the analysis is done on three versions of the same text: the Old Testament book of Esther in the...
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Syntactic constancy of the object between English and Czech in fiction and academic prose
Slunečková, Lenka ; Dušková, Libuše (advisor) ; Malá, Markéta (referee) ; Urbanová, Ludmila (referee)
The present study investigates the constancy of the syntactic function of the object between English and Czech. Syntactic constancy is understood as identical syntactic representation of lexical items in parallel texts taken from different languages. The analysis of instances of syntactic divergence is carried out in order to test the assumption that syntactic structure is hierarchically subordinate to the information structure, i.e. the universal validity of the principle of end focus. The two languages under study, English and Czech, provide typologically suitable subject matter in representing, respectively, an analytic and an inflectional language system which involve different hierarchies of the word order principles. 1 In contrast to previous research, the present treatment is based on a substantially larger corpus (1000 divergent instances) and includes two different stylistic varieties, fiction and academic prose. These two novel aspects are considered to be relevant not only for verifying or modifying the findings obtained from studies investigating other clause elements2 and/or based on fiction alone, but also, more importantly, for capturing and specifying other potential factors conducive to syntactic divergence both in different languages and in different styles.
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Syntactic constancy of the object between English and Czech in fiction and academic prose
Slunečková, Lenka ; Dušková, Libuše (advisor) ; Malá, Markéta (referee) ; Urbanová, Ludmila (referee)
The present study investigates the constancy of the syntactic function of the object between English and Czech. Syntactic constancy is understood as identical syntactic representation of lexical items in parallel texts taken from different languages. The analysis of instances of syntactic divergence is carried out in order to test the assumption that syntactic structure is hierarchically subordinate to the information structure, i.e. the universal validity of the principle of end focus. The two languages under study, English and Czech, provide typologically suitable subject matter in representing, respectively, an analytic and an inflectional language system which involve different hierarchies of the word order principles. 1 In contrast to previous research, the present treatment is based on a substantially larger corpus (1000 divergent instances) and includes two different stylistic varieties, fiction and academic prose. These two novel aspects are considered to be relevant not only for verifying or modifying the findings obtained from studies investigating other clause elements2 and/or based on fiction alone, but also, more importantly, for capturing and specifying other potential factors conducive to syntactic divergence both in different languages and in different styles.
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English book titles in gerundial form
Blaheta, Radek ; Dušková, Libuše (advisor) ; Šaldová, Pavlína (referee)
The category of gerund is a symptomatic component of the grammatical system of present-day English. Numerous studies have dealt with its nature and functions as well as with its delimitation as opposed to related forms of present participle or verbal noun. No matter whether the term gerund is used or not and whether it is theoretically sustainable to differentiate between the related -ing forms, it is obvious that the -ing form that in many contexts clearly displays both nominal and verbal features plays a crucial role within both written and spoken discourse. Nonetheless, apart from the gerund operating within continuous texts, it is revealing to explore its behaviour and functions in the text-frame components, particularly the title, i.e. a text-frame component with a crucial role in the printed publication of a book type. In this context, it is necessary to present 3 basic starting points of the present study: 1. the notion of gerund as a grammatical category is retained in this study (see 2.1.3); 2. a new term - gerund title 1 - is introduced in order to capture the analyzed structures (see the detailed characterization in 2.3); 3. the analysis is largely based on the functional approach. Based on the assumptions presented above, the aim of the present study is an overall analysis of the gerund title,...
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The transition between restrictive and nonrestrictive adnominal relative clauses
Šímová, Pavlína ; Šaldová, Pavlína (referee) ; Dušková, Libuše (referee)
Cilem predlozene pnice Je zkoumat vztazne vety adjektivni (dale jen vztazne vety) z hlediska moznosti jejich zarazeni do jednoho z rozdilnych typu - tj. do typu restriktivniho a do typu nerestriktivniho. Tyto dva typy jsou v lingvisticke literature chapany jako temer kontradiktorni: jsou tedy pevne a ostfe vymezeny. Ve vymezeni vzta.znych vet do dvou typu ma nejdulezitejsi roli semanticky vztah mezi antecedentem a vztaznou vetou: vztazna veta je restriktivni, je-li nutna pro jednoznacne vymezeni sveho antecedenta, nebo nerestriktivni, pokud pridava dalSi semanticky rys antecedentu, jehoz identita je jiz znama. V kategorii vztaznych vet nerestriktivnich nektei'i lingviste (Jespersen) vymezuji daISi tridu vet: vety kontinuativni, tedy vety, jejichz slovesny cas je postreriorni casu v hlavni vete. DalSi hledisko je hledisko fonologicke, kdy vztazne vety restriktivni tvoi'i spolecnou intonacni jednotku s antecedentem; vztazne vety nerestriktivni jsou realizovany samostatnou intonacni jednotkou. Toto vymezeni je analogicke semantickemu hledisku: restriktivni vety tvori spolu se svym antecedem samostatnou informacni jednotku a vety nerestriktivni predstavuji samostatne informacni jednotky, sdelujici informace sice dulezite, ale ne zasadni pro jednoznacne urceni reference sveho antecedenta. (...)
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English book titles in gerundial form
Blaheta, Radek ; Dušková, Libuše (advisor) ; Šaldová, Pavlína (referee)
The category of gerund is a symptomatic component of the grammatical system of present-day English. Numerous studies have dealt with its nature and functions as well as with its delimitation as opposed to related forms of present participle or verbal noun. No matter whether the term gerund is used or not and whether it is theoretically sustainable to differentiate between the related -ing forms, it is obvious that the -ing form that in many contexts clearly displays both nominal and verbal features plays a crucial role within both written and spoken discourse. Nonetheless, apart from the gerund operating within continuous texts, it is revealing to explore its behaviour and functions in the text-frame components, particularly the title, i.e. a text-frame component with a crucial role in the printed publication of a book type. In this context, it is necessary to present 3 basic starting points of the present study: 1. the notion of gerund as a grammatical category is retained in this study (see 2.1.3); 2. a new term - gerund title l - is introduced in order to capture the analyzed structures (see the detailed characterization in 2.3); 3. the analysis is largely based on the functional approach.
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