This paper presents and discusses the results of an experiment testing the validity of the Trace Deletion Hypothesis (Grodzinsky 1989, 2000) in Czech. The Trace Deletion Hypothesis (= TDH) was proposed to account for a receptive syntactic deficit in Broca’s aphasics that involves structures containing transformational operations such as the passive. According to the assumptions of the TDH, in passive constructions Broca’s aphasics fail to assign a semantic θ-role to the derived subject syntactically, so they assign it the Agent θ-role by linear consideration (Default Principle), which results in a structure with two potential Agents. This strategy is supposed to lead to the chance performance of Broca’s aphasics in these structures, as they are forced to guess the distribution of the Agent and the Patient θ-roles. The results of our experiment, however, do not support the TDH-proposal: out of the six tested subjects, only one performed at chance. The error rate for reversible passive structures in Czech was 33.34%, which corresponds to an above-chance performance. Given these results, the validity of the TDH is called into question, also with respect to the development of the generative theory itself., In diesem Artikel werden Ergebnisse eines Experiments präsentiert und diskutiert, in dem die Validität der sogenannten Spurentilgungshypothese (Trace Deletion Hypothesis – Grodzinsky, 1989, 2000) für das Tschechische überprüft wurde. Die Spurentilgungshypothese (= STH) wurde vorgeschlagen, um rezeptive syntaktische Defizite von Strukturen mit Transformationsoperationen (z. B. das Passiv) zu erklären, die bei Patienten mit Broca-Aphasie auftauchen. Beim Verständnis von Passivkonstruktionen misslingt den Broca-Aphasikern laut der STH die Zuordnung der semantischen θ-Rolle zum syntaktisch derivierten Subjekt. Stattdessen stützen sich die Broca-Aphasiker bei der Zuweisung der Agens θ-Rolle auf die lineare Abfolge der Satzglieder (Default Prinzip), was dazu führt, dass die Struktur aus Sicht der Aphasiker zwei potentielle Agens hat. Diese Strategie führt zu einer zufälligen Wahl, da Broca-Aphasiker die Verteilung zwischen den Agens und Patiens θ-Rollen raten müssen. Die Ergebnisse des hier vorgestellten Experiments unterstützen die Gültigkeit der STH-Hypothese nicht: Von sechs getesteten Probanden wies nur ein Proband eine zufällige Verteilung der semantischen Rollen auf. Die Fehlerrate für reversible Passivkonstruktionen im Tschechischen lag bei 33,34 % – dies entspricht einer überzufälligen Leistung der Probanden bezüglich der Zuordnung der semantischen θ-Rollen. Angesichts dieser Resultate muss die Validität der STH-Hypothese in Frage gestellt werden, und zwar auch im Hinblick auf die allgemeine Entwicklung der generativen Theorie., Andrea Hudousková, Eva Flanderková, Barbara Mertins, Kristýna Tomšů., and Obsahuje seznam literatury
The treatise deals with the language of the earliest redaction of the Old Bohemian Annals written in Czech, which were issued i.a. through the merit of the author of this article. The focus of attention are six texts from the middle of the fifteenth century; the objective of the treatise is to verify from the position of a linguist the validity of the conclusions on the filial relations between the individual annals, which were formulated by the historian P. Čornej, to date the texts more precisely and formulate the specific language features of the individual annals. The article discusses the linguistic phenomena typical, or on the other hand exceptional, for the annals and the period of their origin, namely from all of the linguistic levels (ortography and phonetics, morphology, syntax, stylistics, lexis). Through the analysis, it was proved that the annals capture many times a distinctly archaic form of the Czech language, predominantly on the lower levels. On the other hand, progress is recorded in the lexis, which reacts to the social development most flexibly. The opinion of filial relations between the manuscripts is in agreement with the opinion of the historian. and Alena M. Černá.
The aim of this paper is to describe 18th century "language criticism" (Sprachkritik) in the Bohemian Lands and underline its role within the process of establishing of the literary criticism. In the Habsburg monarchy, the language criticism can be traced back to the late 1740s; its origins are linked to the southern German sense of cultural (and thus linguistic), political and economical backwardness and to the efforts to catch up with the mostly protestant countries of Central and Northern Germany. The authors of this article examine not only reflections of used language and style in particular works, but also the position, prestige and function of various languages (German, Latin, Czech) themselves. The trends in language criticism and - in the narrower sense - language cultivation are examined with the use of both expert contributions to learned discussions and publicistic articles in critical journals aiming at a larger audience. In the whole process, several moments that meant a significant impulse for language criticism can be observed. The first one would be the appointment of Karl Heinrich Seibt as university professor of Schöne Wissenschaften (belles lettres), rhetoric, historia litteraria and ethics in 1763, followed by the efforts to establish a learned society, Josephine reforms and foundation of a chair of Czech language and literature at Prague university in 1791. Finally, the tightening of censorship from the second half of 1790s on had a considerable influence on criticism; its subject started to change and it began to focus on a different group of intended readers: while it used to try to educate potential future authors, afterwards it concentrated more and more on educating of the "common reader" and engaging him into critical reflections on belles lettres., Václav Petrbok a Ondřej Podavka., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy