{"id":1179,"date":"2010-10-05T22:00:23","date_gmt":"2010-10-05T20:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=1179"},"modified":"2010-09-28T12:09:54","modified_gmt":"2010-09-28T10:09:54","slug":"czech-in-generative-grammar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=1179","title":{"rendered":"Czech in generative grammar"},"content":{"rendered":"
Czech in generative grammar<\/strong>. Ed. by Mojm\u00edr Do\u010dekal<\/strong>, Petr Karl\u00edk<\/strong>, and Jana Zmrzl\u00edkov\u00e1<\/strong>. (LINCOM studies in Slavic linguistics 28.) Munich: LINCOM Europa, 2007. Pp. 208. ISBN 9783895860799<\/a>. $140.70 (Hb).<\/div>\n

Reviewed by Iv\u00e1n Ortega-Santos<\/strong><\/a>, University of Memphis<\/em><\/p>\n

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<\/em>-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.<\/p>\n

With regard to Case, Joseph Emonds<\/strong> focuses on Czech Case in PP structures, stressing the similarities with other Indo-European systems. Mark\u00e9ta Zikov\u00e1<\/strong> discusses initial vowels of Case markers in a Czech nominal declension, the d\u011bl\u00e1n\u00ed<\/em> paradigm, claiming that these vowels are lexically floating segments or else lexically associated with Nuclei. Pavel Caha<\/strong> concentrates on Case assignment asymmetries in Czech DPs with inanimate pronouns (like nic<\/em> \u2018nothing\u2019). These asymmetries are captured by arguing that oblique Cases have a large number of functional projections and contain the structural Cases within them.<\/p>\n

As far as the discussion of clitics is concerned, Jakub Dotla\u010dil<\/strong> 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 Medov\u00e1<\/strong> and Tarald Taraldsen<\/strong> discuss the reflexive clitic in Czech, suggesting a way of unifying its various uses. Andrea Volencov\u00e1<\/strong> provides an account of the distribution of reflexive verbal forms in Czech.<\/p>\n

Hana Skrabalova<\/strong> concentrates on wh<\/em>-questions containing two (or more) wh<\/em>-words in which the last wh<\/em>-item is introduced by a conjunction, She claims that they provide evidence for the existence of two structures: clause-internal coordination of wh<\/em>-phrases and coordination of two clauses, one of them being elliptic. Mark\u00e9ta Ceplov\u00e1<\/strong> focuses on a number of aspects of wh<\/em>-existential constructions, variously known as irrealis free relatives or indefinite free relatives.<\/p>\n

With regard to information structure and focus, Petr Biskup<\/strong> 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 \u0160im\u00edk<\/strong> deals with the syntax and semantics of the Czech invariant demonstrative or demonstrative-like element to<\/em>, arguing that it is focus-head placed above IP.<\/p>\n

The remaining papers are more diverse. Mojm\u00edr Do\u010dekal<\/strong> discusses the interpretation of the Czech anaphor svuj <\/em>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 Karl\u00edk<\/strong> deals with mixed nominals, in particular phrases headed by words like stav\u011bn\u00ed<\/em> and stavba<\/em> \u2018building\u2019, within a non-lexicalist theoretical framework.<\/p>\n

The variety of issues it covers makes this volume interesting to a broader audience than those specializing in Czech.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Czech in generative grammar. Ed. by Mojm\u00edr Do\u010dekal, Petr Karl\u00edk, and Jana Zmrzl\u00edkov\u00e1. (LINCOM studies in Slavic linguistics 28.) Munich: LINCOM Europa, 2007. Pp. 208. ISBN 9783895860799. $140.70 (Hb). Reviewed by Iv\u00e1n Ortega-Santos, University of Memphis This book is remarkable in that it is the first to analyze the Czech language within a generative framework. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1179"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1180,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179\/revisions\/1180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}