The project focuses on the development of the word order of Czech pronominal (en)clitics mi, si, ti, ho, mu, sě, tě. The analysis is based on representative parts of Old and Middle Czech Bibles (created in the 14th–18th centuries). The word order of pronominal (en)clitics is investigated in the phrase of finite verb. The research deals especially with the competition between the second position and the contact (verb adjacent) position of the (en)clitics, with the (en)clitic cluster, with the change of originally orthotonic pronominal forms ho, mu, sě, tě to “constant” (en)clitics and with the proclitization of pronominal (en)clitics. The project methodology draws on the tradition of Czech dependency and functional syntax. As the analysis of historical development of (en)clitics is also based on frequency characteristics of the observed phenomena, methods of quantitative linguistics are used for a further interpretation of the data.
The paper studies the development of several properties of the reflexive clitic sě/se in the Czech language. We focus on word order position of the reflexive and on the influence which the length of the initial phrase has on the position. We also investigate the shift of the reflexive from an enclitic into a prosodically indifferent clitic. Nine Czech translations of the Gospel of Matthew from the 14th to the 21st century are used aslanguage material.
The paper brings an analysis of the relationship between the length of the initial phrase and the positions of pronominal enclitics in a clause. The hypothesis predicting the negative correlation between the length of this phrase and the proportion of enclitics in postinitial position was set up and tested. For the testing, selected books from the first edition of the Old Czech Bible translation were used. The hypothesis was not rejected, however, some differences among particular pronouns were revealed.
The study is devoted to the word order of the short pronominal forms mi, sě, tě ‘me-DAT, REFL-ACC, you-ACC’ dependent on a finite verb in the 1st edition of the Old Czech Bible. The studied forms – permanent enclitics in the contemporary Czech – are numerous enough so that their analysis is possible (unlike other pronominal enclitic forms, i.e., si, ti, ho, mu ‘REFL-DAT, you-DAT, he-ACC, he-DAT’). In the introduction, we summarize the results of the previous research dedicated to the degree the forms sě and tě were enclitic and to the factors that influence the competition of the post-initial word order and a ‘contact’ word order of pronominal (and verbal) enclitics (the competition documented well into the beginning of the 20th century in Czech). In the second, analytical part, we deal with the possible influence of the Latin word order of Vulgate (Parisian Bible) on the word order of the studied forms.
In this paper, we look at the distribution of word order positions of the reflexive pronominal enclitic sě in one of the oldest Czech prosaic texts from the second half of the 14th century, e. g. in the Passional (the Old Czech translation/adaptation of the Latin Legenda aurea). We compare the situation in the Passionl with Matthew's Gospel in the Dresden Bible and the Olomouc Bible. Using quantitative linguistics methods, we compare the distribution of various positions and analyze the influence of the length of the initial phrase on the distribution of post-initial and non-post-initial positions. The analysis of the relationship between the length of the initial phrase and the distribution of the sě is based on the assumption that the enclitics avoid the position after the initial phrase / constituent, which forms a separate intonation phrase. This mechanism is known as a heavy constituent constrain (Radanović-Kocić, 1996) or clitic third (Ćavar & Wilder, 1999).
The paper deals with the word order of the Czech 1. Ps Sg pronominal dative enclitic mi ‘to me’ dependent on a finite verb; the source is the Bible benátská (1506), concretely four books of the Old Testament and four books of the New Testament: Genesis, Job, Sirach, Isaiah, Matthew, Luke, of the Apostles, Revelation of St. John. The study focuses on the distribution of word order positions of the enclitic mi, in particular we look at the a. Post-initial position, b. Contact position, c. Medial isolated position. We analyze this phenomenon from diachronic perspective, therefore, we compare the position of the enclitic in the Venetian Bible with the previous and subsequent Bibles, Olomoucká bible (1417) and Kralická bible (1579–1594), respectively. In addition, the influence of the length of the initial phrase on the distribution of post-initial and non-post-initial positions of the enclitic mi is analysed quantitatively.
The paper deals with two important questions in linguistic research: 1) What do we actually model when we model language usage? and 2) What is an appropriate sample or ‘text unit’ for the analysis of language usage? In the beginning, we critically discuss several approaches to the analysis of language behaviour. Then, we introduce the most important characteristics of both Zipf’s linguistic theory and synergetic linguistics. We focus in particular on the aspects of these theories which are connected to the above-mentioned questions. Specifically, we emphasize that one of the fundamental features of these theories is the assumption that there are linguistic laws which govern human language behaviour and which can be best detected by observing the language behaviour of an individual (in a particular context). As a consequence, if the goal of the research is to examine laws of this kind, the individual text is used as a basic unit for the analysis. The mixing of texts can, in some cases, lead to the “concealing” of the laws, as is presented in an example. We also offer another example which shows how characteristics of the same law (in this case, the Menzerath-Altmann law) differ in different texts. Finally, we emphasize that using individual texts in linguistic research is but one possible approach to analysis, i.e. we do not attempt to make ita linguistic research dogma.
The article deals with the word order of the Czech reflexive pronoun/morpheme se dependent on a finite verb in eight selected books of the first edition of the Kralice Bible (1579–1594). The study is a follow-up to the previous research on the word order of the pronominal enclitics mi, ho, mu in the Kralice Bible and of the reflexive pronoun/morpheme se in the first redaction of the Old Czech Bible. The analysis reveals that the reflexive pronoun/morpheme se manifests characteristics typical to word ordering of enclitics in the given Bible text. Specifically, there is competition between the post-initial and contact positions of the enclitic in the Kralice Bible. The contact position occurs, however, within the post-initial position in a majority of cases, which means that these two positions do not compete but rather cooperate. This cooperation was also found in other Czech Bibles. Additionally, the realization of the enclitic in the contact non-post-initial position is influenced by the position of its governing verb further in the clause, the length of the initial phrase (the longer the first phrase, the higher the probability of the non-post-initial position), and the style (it is more likely to appear in the non-post-initial position if the text has a poetic style). Finally, the comparison of the Kralice Bible and the first redaction of the Old Czech Bible has revealed – despite the two-hundred-year gap between the two translations – the same word order patterns of word ordering of sě/se.
The study deals with the word order of the Czech pronominal enclitics mi, si, ti, ho, mu dependent on a finite verb in eight selected books of the first edition of the Kralice Bible (1579–1594). The results are tested using the tools of quantitative linguistics. First, only the forms mi, ho and mu are documented in the analyzed Biblical books, while the other forms – si, ti – do not appear at all. The forms of mi, ho and mu have properties of permanent enclitics and appear in various clause positions (typical for the development of Czech enclitics): post-initial, contact and medial isolated positions. In most cases, the enclitics appear in the postinitial contact position, the next most frequent variant in the word order position of the enclitics is the non-post-initial position, and within them, the most frequent is the contact position (while the absolute number of enclitics in the medial isolated position is negligible). It therefore seems that the Czech Biblical translation tends to use a contact word order. It has been demonstrated that the distribution of the non-postinitial position is affected by the length of the first clausal phrase: the longer the first phrase, the higher the probability of the non-post-initial position. Looking at the individual Biblical books, it is impossible to confirm the style influence on the positioning of the enclitics in various clausal positions statistically. On the other hand, comparing several Czech clauses with their Latin, Greek and Hebrew pretexts, it seems that the distribution of non-post-initial positions in the Czech texts is influenced by the word order of their pretext models. Further research is needed, however, to examine this issue.
The present study focuses on the word order of the pro no mi nal enclitics mi, ti, si, ho, mu in selected books of the Old and New Tes ta ments of the Kralice Bible. It focuses mainly on the distribution of individual forms within two competing positions, i.e., the post-initial position and contact position. The paper concentrates on non-post-initial positions of enclitics in the Kralice Bible, which are si gni fi can tly less frequent than the post-initial positions and are in fact variants of the contact position. In the article, we try to pinpoint the extent to which the word order of the original texts (Latin, possibly Hebrew and Greek) in fluen ces the word order of the trans la tions, the less frequent enclitics positions in par ti cu lar. We look at Old and New Testaments separately, given that they are based on different languages.
The paper is focused on the analysis of the relationship between the full valency of the predicate and the position of enclitics in the clause. For this analysis, ones of the oldest Old Czech prose texts were used. We set up the hypothesis - the higher the full valency of the predicate, the lower the probability of the occurrence of the enclitic after the initial phrase of the clause – and test it. The hypothesis was corroborated only for narrative texts. In the case of poetic texts, the hypothesis was rejected.
The paper focuses on analyzing the relationship among word order positions of pronominal enclitics in the history of Czech. Specifically, we look at the Wackernagel’s position and the contact position and we try to decide whether these two positions compete, as usually taken for granted, or whether there is a certain kind of cooperation between them. The results show that the positions do not compete, at least not in the majority of cases. We used a corpus based on selected books of the first edition of the Old Czech Bible and Kralice Bible for the analysis.
The paper deals with the word order of reflexive sě, which is an item on the boundary between a pronominal form and a discrete morpheme. In the first part of the study, we investigate the (en)clitic status of sě in eight books of the oldest complete Czech Bible translation. The analysis focuses only on sě that is dependent on a finite verb: it identifies all possible word order positions of sě in a clause and interprets them in the light of the main competing positions of Czech (en)clitics during the development of the language: 1. the postinitial position, i.e. when an (en)clitic is located after first word/phrase; 2. the contact (verb-adjacent) position, i.e. when an (en)clitic is located immediately before (preverbal position) or after (postverbal position) its syntactically or morphologically superordinate item.
In the second part of the paper, the distribution of clause positions of the reflexive pronoun sě is analyzed statistically. Specifically, the impact of both stylistic factors and the length of the element in the initial position are investigated. The authors also discuss the possible influence of the word order of the Latin pretext (the Vulgate) on the Old Czech translation.
In this part of the paper, the distribution of clause positions of the reflexive pronoun sě is analyzed statistically. Specifically, the impact of both stylistic factors and the length of the element in the initial position are investigated. The authors also discuss the possible influence of the word order of the Latin pretext (the Vulgate) on the Old Czech translation.
The paper is focused on the short pronominal forms that have status of so called stálá enklitika (‘permanent enclitics’ or enclitica tantum) in Modern Czech: mi ‘me’, ti ‘to you’, si ‘to myself / to yourself etc.’, sě (> se) ‘myself / yourself etc.’, tě ‘you’, ho ‘him’, mu ‘to him’. The analysis is based on the material gained from the selected books of the oldest complete Czech Bible translation from the half of the 14th century. The first part of the study deals with the frequency of the analyzed forms, especially with the lack of the forms si, ti and the low frequency of the short forms ho, mu (developed from the disyllabic forms jeho > jho > ho, jemu > jmu > mu). The next part is focused on the word order properties of the analyzed pronominal forms that are dependent on a finite verb. The article interprets them in the light of the main competing positions of Czech enclitics during the development of the language: 1. the postinitial position, i.e. when an enclitic is located after first word / phrase; 2. the contact (verb-adjacent) position, i.e. when an enclitic is located immediately before (preverbal position) or after (postverbal position) its syntactically or morphologically superordinate item. In the last part of the article, the question of the change of the previously orthotonic forms sě, tě into the permanent enclitic forms is examined.
Hlavním cílem tohoto příspěvku je prozkoumat slovosled dativních zájmenných forem mi, si, ti v jednom z nejstarších neveršovaných českých textů. Studie je součástí výzkumu vývoje českých pronominálních enklitik a jejím smyslem je připravit východisko pro analýzu slovosledu dalších zájmenných tvarů, které se ve stabilní enklitické formy změnily teprve v průběhu historického vývoje češtiny (ho, mu, sě, tě). Sledované formy mi, si, ti jsou krátké varianty dativu singuláru, které měly status enklitik tantum již od praslovanského období.
The project fulfilled all of the main objectives: