Reviewed by Iván Ortega-Santos, University of Memphis
This book is remarkable in that it is the first to analyze the Czech language within a generative framework. It includes papers on Case, clitics, the syntax of wh-elements, focalization, the interpretation of anaphors under VP ellipsis, and mixed nominals. It is intended for those with an interest in Czech and in generative grammar.
With regard to Case, Joseph Emonds focuses on Czech Case in PP structures, stressing the similarities with other Indo-European systems. Markéta Ziková discusses initial vowels of Case markers in a Czech nominal declension, the dělání paradigm, claiming that these vowels are lexically floating segments or else lexically associated with Nuclei. Pavel Caha concentrates on Case assignment asymmetries in Czech DPs with inanimate pronouns (like nic ‘nothing’). These asymmetries are captured by arguing that oblique Cases have a large number of functional projections and contain the structural Cases within them.
As far as the discussion of clitics is concerned, Jakub Dotlačil develops an argument from clitic omission in conjunction which supports the view that the second position of the clitic is a result of the interplay of syntax and phonology in Czech. Lucie Medová and Tarald Taraldsen discuss the reflexive clitic in Czech, suggesting a way of unifying its various uses. Andrea Volencová provides an account of the distribution of reflexive verbal forms in Czech.
Hana Skrabalova concentrates on wh-questions containing two (or more) wh-words in which the last wh-item is introduced by a conjunction, She claims that they provide evidence for the existence of two structures: clause-internal coordination of wh-phrases and coordination of two clauses, one of them being elliptic. Markéta Ceplová focuses on a number of aspects of wh-existential constructions, variously known as irrealis free relatives or indefinite free relatives.
With regard to information structure and focus, Petr Biskup discusses sentence-final sentence adverbs in the phase model. He claims that sentence adverbs can be merged in the vP phase and that the (un)grammaticality of certain sentence adverbs in sentence-final position depends on the (non-)interpretability of a given adverb in the vP position. Radek Šimík deals with the syntax and semantics of the Czech invariant demonstrative or demonstrative-like element to, arguing that it is focus-head placed above IP.
The remaining papers are more diverse. Mojmír Dočekal discusses the interpretation of the Czech anaphor svuj under VP ellipsis to explain the fact that this anaphor can be interpreted either as a bound variable or as a covaluated expression, though the covaluation reading disappears in the VP ellipsis context. Petr Karlík deals with mixed nominals, in particular phrases headed by words like stavění and stavba ‘building’, within a non-lexicalist theoretical framework.
The variety of issues it covers makes this volume interesting to a broader audience than those specializing in Czech.