Czech (Languages of the world)

This grammatical sketch of Czech is intended to serve as a descriptive handbook unencumbered by the viewpoint of any one theoretical framework. The Introduction will give a survey of the location and number of speakers, as well as the relation of Czech to other languages, and the relations of literary Czech to its variants (dialectology and diglossia). The chapter on phonology will focus on vowel quantity, assimilations, and the prosodic behavior of clitics. The chapter on morphology will detail the grammatical categories expressed in the language and the means of their expression, with special emphasis on morphophonemic alternations. This is to be followed by a chapter on syntax, which will address the meanings and uses of cases and prepositions, numeral constructions, clause structure, multiple negation, use of passive and causative constructions, coordination and subordination of clauses, and discourse phenomena. A separate chapter will be devoted to the issue of diglossia in Czech, outlining the phonological, morphological, syntactic, and lexical differences that exist between the two "standard" codes of the language, literary Czech and spoken Czech. The book will close with two brief texts to serve as examples of the two codes, each with an interlinear transcription and translation into English.