Homework #3
Czech/Slovak speakers and adventurous speakers of other languages.
In short: Find 5 cases of NP clusters in Czech.
Traditionally, Czech nouns can be modified by
- agreeing attributes (shodné přívlastky) preceding the noun:
Ostravská univerzita (lit: Ostrava-ish university)
These attributes agree with the noun in case, gender and number, so they change when the head noun changes
(do Ostravské univerzity, s Ostravskou univerzitou, ..).
- non-agreeing attributes (neshodné přívlastky) follow the noun:
Akademie výtvarných umění (lit: academy finegen artsgen),
Univerzita Pardubice (university Pardubicegen)
These attributes are noun phrases or prepositional phrases and they do not change when the head noun changes
(do Univerzity Pardubice, s Univerzitou Pardubice, ..).
In English, typically, only prepositional phrases follow the head noun. Both modifying adjectives and noun phrases (N' to be precise, because NPs would require a determiner) precede the head noun:
- Ostrava University
- Pardubice University (university Pardubice could refer to the areas of Pardubice related to university life)
- Fine Arts Academy (or Academy of Fine Arts; Academy Fine Arts would mean academic fine arts),
Other examples of non-agreeing attributes in English, all preceding the head noun:
- tape recorder, memory chip, memory chip slot, computer screen, HTML editor
- 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
- [Global Navigation Satellite Systems] Service
- ...
However, this English 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 rohlík?)
- Můj T-Mobile samoobsluha (Samoobsluha Mého T-Mobilu)
Not all sequence of nouns or noun phrases can be classified as this imported construction.
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.
