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Noun phrase complexity in academic written English
Kratochvílová, Pavla ; Malá, Markéta (advisor) ; Dušková, Libuše (referee)
The diploma thesis analyses written academic text. Academic prose is frequently characterized as a highly complex style which is structurally elaborated, contains a large number of subordinate clauses and expresses meaning relations explicitly. However, new research (e.g. Biber & Gray, 2010) shows that complexity of academic writing occurs on the level of noun phrases which often contain extensive premodification and/or postmodification. The thesis studies noun phrase structure in research articles from two disciplines: medicine and sociology. Two articles from each discipline were selected, each yielding 50 complex noun phrases. These 200 examples were analysed with respect to their modification, its form and levels of embedding. The results were compared for both disciplines. The aim of the thesis was to describe complex noun phrase structure and identify its relation to the type of academic discipline. Key words: noun phrase, modification, academic text, sociology, medicine
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The noun phrase in written and spoken academic discourse
Sládečka, Dušan ; Malá, Markéta (advisor) ; Šaldová, Pavlína (referee)
The diploma thesis is concerned with exploring the differences between the noun phrases in written and spoken academic monologue, focussing on the length of the phrase, its internal complexity and syntactic functions. In the theoretical part of the study, the noun phrase, its constituents, structure and usage are introduced. The noun phrase is introduced as one of the means of complex condensation. The basic characteristics of written and spoken academic language are introduced as well. The practical part of the study is a detailed analysis of 210 noun phrases. The written sample is collected from selected academic articles, whereas the sample of spoken lecture is collected from the lecture database of the BASE corpus. Since the study focuses on two different forms of language, the material is analysed for each of them separately and the results are subsequently compared in the final part of each subsection. The hypothesis of the thesis is that the written sample contains noun phrases with more complex modification, whereas the spoken sample contains more simple noun phrases and more clausal modification. The hypothesis was, for the most part, confirmed.
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Survey of word-order tendencies in Czech Sign Language
Kubištová, Jitka ; Lehečková, Eva (advisor) ; Macurová, Alena (referee)
This thesis focuses on the description of the three basic aspects of the word order in the Czech Sign Language in the contrast with the spoken Czech Language. On the basis of the empiric research the prototypical word order is described for the declarative sentences, topicalization and the order of the signs in the nominal phrase in the Czech Sign Language. The research consists of the video material recording 15 native speakers of the Czech Sign Language of various age. The results are compared with the situation in the three other sign languages - the American, British and Australian Sign Language. The part of this piece of work is a DVD containing particular excerpted examples of utterances, which the deaf signers have used in the research.
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Finite and participial postmodifiers in spoken academic discourse: natural and social sciences
Škodová, Kateřina ; Šaldová, Pavlína (advisor) ; Malá, Markéta (referee)
The subject of the present study is a comparison of two postmodifying constructions in noun phrases - finite relative adnominal clauses with the subject gap and nonfinite participial clauses - in spoken academic discourse: natural and social science. The comparison is based on the fact that both constructions realize the same clause element, i.e. a postmodifier in a noun phrase. The aim of the present study is thus to present major characteristics and functions of finite relative clauses and their reduced counterparts with respect to their distribution across the two subregisters of spoken academic discourse. The study is divided into three main parts: the theoretical background (Chapter 2) which defines the major characteristics and functions of the two postmodifying constructions and their mutual relationship, as are presented in the literature; the main part (Chapters 3 and 4) which provides the analysis of finite relative clauses and participial postmodifiers; and conclusion in Chapter 5.
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Noun phrase complexity in academic written English
Kratochvílová, Pavla ; Malá, Markéta (advisor) ; Dušková, Libuše (referee)
The diploma thesis analyses written academic text. Academic prose is frequently characterized as a highly complex style which is structurally elaborated, contains a large number of subordinate clauses and expresses meaning relations explicitly. However, new research (e.g. Biber & Gray, 2010) shows that complexity of academic writing occurs on the level of noun phrases which often contain extensive premodification and/or postmodification. The thesis studies noun phrase structure in research articles from two disciplines: medicine and sociology. Two articles from each discipline were selected, each yielding 50 complex noun phrases. These 200 examples were analysed with respect to their modification, its form and levels of embedding. The results were compared for both disciplines. The aim of the thesis was to describe complex noun phrase structure and identify its relation to the type of academic discipline. Key words: noun phrase, modification, academic text, sociology, medicine
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Zero article in contemporary Italian
Pascucci, Marco ; Špaček, Jiří (advisor) ; Štichauer, Pavel (referee)
This work intends to offer a general view of the cases in which the contemporary italian grammar omits the article. The various types of articles and noun phrases will be presented in the first section just briefly, only to give the reader an overall background in which put the cases with the zero article. A special attention will be given to the cases that permit oppositions between the use of an article and the use of the zero article. Therefore what will be examined primarily will be: the plural of undetermined noun phrases, numerals, mass nouns, proper nouns, family nouns, possessives, verb+noun constructions, ellipsis and left dislocations. This work is addressed in a special way to students of italian, who will be able to find, in the different chapters, many explanations to the most occurring questions concerning the appropriate use of the zero article.
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