Homework #3
Czech/Slovak speakers and adventurous speakers of other languages.
In short: Find 5 cases of NP clusters in Czech.
In English and Czech, a noun can be modified by preceding adjectives. However, in English it can be also modified by one or more preceding noun phrases
(precisely N', NP would require a determiner). Sometimes they are also called noun compounds, because they exhibit many properties of morphological compouding.
For example:
- tape recorder, memory chip, memory chip slot, computer screen, HTML editor
- Health Ministry - [Czech [Health Ministry]] - [[Czech [Health Ministry]] memo]
- [ [United States] [Department of Health and Human Services] ] [ [Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services] Administration ]
- [ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration ] National Advisory Council
- International [Global Navigation Satellite Systems] Service
- high-efficiency multiple voltage retinal prosthesis research platform
- ...
It seems that this construction is slowly being imported into Czech, some real examples include:
- Staropramen Extraliga (the traditional form would be Extraliga Staropramenu)
- Sazka Arena (the traditional form would be Arena Sazka)
- pizza rohlík (pizzový rokhlík?)
- Můj T-Mobile samoobsluha (Samoobsluha Mého T-Mobilu ?)
There are traditional noun clusters in Czech. However in those cases, usually either
- both nouns decline (se Škodou Octavií, s Pepou Novákem) and traditionally the second one is considered to be the head, or
- only the first noun declines (se Škodou Octavia, s operačním systémem Linux)
In the imported constructions, the modifying noun precedes the head noun and it does not decline.
Thus s operačním systémem Linux is a traditional Czech structure, while s Linux operačním systémem would be an imported structure (Linux Operating System);
s Arénou Sazka would be traditional, while se Sazka Arénou is an import, etc.
Your task is to find 5 examples of these imported constructions in real life - look at product names, event names, etc. Just look around and you
will see a lot of them.
The 5 examples should differ by more than just choice of words (so don't give me a list consisting of
Staropramen/Gambrinus/Krusovice/... extraliga). At least some of them should be more complex than a simple Noun + Noun.
Speakers of other languages
You can either of the following two:
- Find 5 examples of some imported syntactic structure in your language (similar to the task for Czech/Slovak speakers described above)
- Find 5 examples of incorrect syntax in English phrases as used in the streets of Prague. Note: it must be an error
in syntax (wrong spelling, wrong choice of words, etc. does not count). Preferably, the 5 examples should be different in nature; so please
don't give me 5 phrases each missing the definite article.