The authors present their respective views on the development of the Czech post-war syntactic studies. Their approach is influenced by the fact that they were educated by the different syntactic schools: thus the paper is a combination of Prague’s and Brno´s views. V. Šmilauer´s Novočeská skladba (Syntax of Modern Czech, 1947) is understood as a source of the contemporary research of the Czech syntax. The paper describes the results reached by individual investigators as well as the results of the research teams. According to the authors´ opinion, Two-Level Valency Syntax (represented by F. Daneš and his close collaborators and reflected in the Czech Academic Grammar) and Functional Generative Grammar (developed by P. Sgall and his colleagues) form the main paradigms of the Czech syntax since 1960. Both theories incorporate the results of the classical Praguian functional approach as well as results of the generative paradigm. The authors conclude that the Prague‘s and Brno´s views on the development of Czech syntactic studies are not incompatible but rather complementary and that the methods of formal and corpus linguistics are attractive and useful for the young researchers.
Women/girls are most often portrayed in Czech and Slovak folk ballads in connection with love. In ballads expressing love between feudal lords and common women/girls we can observe different portrayals of women. In these ballads we find women/girls in the position of the feudal lord’s victims as well as in the position of the feudal lord’s wifes to be. Especially in Slovak ballads we can also find women in the position of feudal ladies, which makes up a special category of ballads. These ballads have been divided into three main groups based on the relationship of the woman/girl to the feudal lord: i. Ballads with one-sided love, (where the woman/girl doesn’t return the feudal lord’s love) ii. Ballads with mutual love and iii. Ballads portraying the feudal lady. Generally, the majority of these ballads reflect a historical-social phenomenon: the lower social position of women.