... for thy speech bewrayeth thee

Transkript

1 ... for thy speech bewrayeth thee R A Festschrift for Libuše Dušková Edited by Markéta Malá and Pavlína Šaldová Univerzita Karlova v Praze Filozofická fakulta 2010

2 Contents Tato publikace vznikla s podporou Ministerstva školství, mládeže a tělovýchovy v rámci výzkumného záměru MSM Jazyk jako lidská činnost, její produkt a faktor Jazykové struktury a komunikace. Introduction / 9 List of Contributors / 11 Papers / 13 Martin Adam Some Notes on the Role of the English Verb in the Context of FSP: Semantic homogeneity within the non-thematic layers / 15 Gabriela Brůhová The Position of Reason Clauses / 35 František Čermák The Paremiological Minimum of English / 57 Jan Čermák The Case of Old English N-stem Masculine Derivatives: A typological contribution to categorization in English word-formation / 73 Univerzita Karlova v Praze, Filozofická fakulta, 2010 Martin Adam, Gabriela Brůhová, František Čermák, Jan Čermák, Aleš Klégr, Rostislav Kocourek, Christian Mair, Markéta Malá, Renata Pípalová, Renata Povolná, Vladislav Smolka, Pavol Štekauer, Ludmila Urbanová, Jan Volín, 2010 Všechna práva vyhrazena ISBN Aleš Klégr Noun Phrases with So-adj Predeterminers: So complicated a matter / 93 Rostislav Kocourek The Uniqueness of Human Natural Languages: An anniversary causerie on a text-related linguistic focus / 121 Christian Mair Grammaticalisation of New Patterns of Clausal Subordination: on (the) basis (that) + finite clause and (on) account (of) + finite clause in Present-day English / 153 5

3 Markéta Malá Copular Verbs Sound and Look and their Czech Counterparts / 169 Renata Pípalová On Paragraph Groups with a Narrow Theme in Contemporary English / 189 Renata Povolná Can Non-Native Speakers of English Use Contrastive Discourse Markers Correctly When Writing Academic Texts? / 209 Helen Nathan / 320 Veronika Quinn-Novotná / 321 Gabriele Stein and Randolph Quirk/ 322 Radek Skarnitzl / 323 Jan Svartvik / 324 Pavlína Šaldová / 325 Jarmila Tárnyiková / 326 Ondřej Tichý / 327 Publications of Professor Libuše Dušková / 329 Vladislav Smolka Object That-Clause Extraposition and Postposition in Complex-Transitive Structures / 233 Pavol Štekauer A Typology of Word-Formation Base Modifications in Prefixation and Suffixation / 245 Ludmila Urbanová Socio-Pragmatic Aspects of Phatic Communion: A study of phatic devices in fictional dialogues / 271 Jan Volín On the Significance of the Temporal Structuring of Speech / 289 Well-Wishes / 307 Karin Aijmer / 309 Eva Hajičová and Petr Sgall/ 310 Jana Chamonikolasová / 312 Geoffrey Leech / 314 Jarmila Mothejzíková /

4 Introduction... for thy speech bewrayeth thee Matthew 26,73 Most of us are familiar with the famous scene from the Gospel of Matthew wherein Peter thrice denies having anything in common with Jesus of Nazareth and his disciples. The third query is the most critical for him as the discovery of his identity is based on a powerful argument: Surely thou also art one of them; for thy speech bewrayeth thee, and Peter has his hands full refuting this charge. We could say that the scene is probably one of the oldest written records documenting the importance of sociolinguistic characteristics. To use the terms of contemporary sociolinguistics, what gave Peter away was his regional dialect and probably also his social dialect revealing his background. We know that differences in regional dialects and sociolects are most evident at the level of sound and only then at the other planes of language, lexis and grammar. It can t have been difficult to tell that Peter was not a local man and to notice the similarities between his way of speaking and that of his teacher. It is most likely that Peter adopted other things from his teacher as well, a certain kind of thinking and way of viewing things, and with it also a specific way of expressing these views, especially when speaking publicly. This takes us from dialect to a functional language, a register. Whilst a dialect shows who or what we are, a register, stylistic variant, shows what we are doing via language right now. Our speech habits and activities bewray us. The reason for choosing this particular quotation for the title of a Festschrift presented to Libuše Dušková on the occasion of her 80 th birthday is quite simple and obvious to all who know the festschriftee well. There are few people so perceptive about language, its subtleties, nuances and convolutions at all 9

5 levels, about everything that can be deduced and concluded from speech, so sensitive about everything that speech can tell us about its users and their communicative intentions, as she is. And there are few people as unconditionally devoted to the investigation of language as Libuše Dušková. When responding to the question in a recent interview of what her lifelong hobbies are, her answer was symptomatic: I used to have many hobbies in my youth, but they gradually faded away. Today I have but one, and it is the exploration of language phenomena, which appear to have no end. This modest volume is meant as a sincere tribute to a linguist who dedicated her whole life, all her energy, to the study of the English language and to the development of English linguistics at the department of English at Charles University at both the theoretical and the personal level. Thanks to her efforts, Prague English linguistics weathered out the gloomy period of Communist normalisation in the eighties of the last century, rallied around her in the stormy 1990 s to become a balanced modern study programme that can compare with departments abroad. Now, at the end of the first decade of the 21 st century, we can say that under her spiritual guidance English linguistics at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, has become an efficient and up-to-date department with good prospects for the future, relying on a team of young scholars to whom she has imparted not only theoretical knowledge, but also the principles and ethics of sound scientific work. Those who know Libuše Dušková are well aware that there is no discrepancy between what she says and what she does. They know that her speech bewrayeth her but, in contrast to Simon, who is called Peter, it reveals her to be consistent both in life and in work. List of Contributors Martin Adam, Masarykova univerzita, Brno Gabriela Brůhová, Univerzita Karlova v Praze František Čermák, Univerzita Karlova v Praze Jan Čermák, Univerzita Karlova v Praze Aleš Klégr, Univerzita Karlova v Praze Rostislav Kocourek, Dalhousie University Christian Mair, University of Freiburg Markéta Malá, Univerzita Karlova v Praze Renata Pípalová, Univerzita Karlova v Praze Renata Povolná, Masarykova univerzita, Brno Vladislav Smolka, Jihočeská univerzita, České Budějovice Pavol Štekauer, Univerzita Pavla Jozefa Šafárika v Košiciach; Rzeszow University Ludmila Urbanová, Masarykova univerzita, Brno Jan Volín, Univerzita Karlova v Praze Aleš Klégr 10 11