Theories, Methods, and Models in Contemporary Linguistic Research

Group coordinator: Ondřej Pešek

Texts exhibit multiple "types" of structures with different segmentation and varying degrees of hierarchical complexity. The relations within these structures tend to be signalled (or established) through a heterogeneous range of linguistic devices, with individual formal means frequently functioning simultaneously as signals of structural relations at multiple levels. Texts are genre-bound and, as such, enter into broader discourse units.

This research aims to:

• develop a theoretical account of textual structures at both global and local levels,
• analyse specific formal phenomena functioning as signals of structural relations,
• examine the communicative effects of selected linguistic devices in discourse.

The research reflects the current state of linguistics, which involves a complex interplay between national scholarly traditions (such as the distinctive approaches of Czech, French, and German text linguistics) and global mainstream trends. Particular emphasis is placed on the use of computational tools, which now form an indispensable part of the methodological toolkit for discourse analysis.

The research work is organized into six thematic areas:

1. Global textual structures and their theoretical conceptualization
2. Analysis of textual connectives
3. Analysis of coreferential relations
4. Acquisition of textual competence in a foreign language
5. Specific phenomena in spoken language
6. Specific issues in textual chronology

Members of the Research Group I:

• François Dendoncker
• Tomáš Hoskovec
• Ondřej Pešek
• Kateřina Rysová
• Jana Pešková
• Markéta Šmídová
• Alena Venušová
• Markéta Ederová
• Petra Macurová

Group coordinator: Jan Radimský

Research Axis 1: Development and Competition of Word-Formation Patterns

The team conducts empirical analyses of the factors influencing the availability, productivity, and competition of diverse word-formation patterns, from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives. A core element of the project is the development of a word-formation database of Italian and French n-grams. This is based on newly released raw data from Google Books (Google n-grams, 2020), which record the frequencies of words and word combinations in books and other printed materials from the 16th century to the early 21st century. These raw data are gradually being transformed into a format suitable for lexical-morphological analysis. This involves the extraction of:

• datasets of unique word types,
• datasets with their respective diachronic frequencies grouped by year and decade.

The finalised datasets are hosted on a virtual PostgreSQL server at the USB Rectorate, where they are available for Centre researchers. Additionally, textual versions (.csv) are made openly accessible via the repository https://osf.io/46qcd/. Based on these data, current empirical research focuses on suffix competition in Italian deverbal nouns and the development of Italian and French N+N compounds.

Research Axis 2: Onomasiological Approaches to Word Formation
The research focuses on a development of an onomasiological theory of word-formation based on a comprehensive revision of Dokulil’s onomasiological theory, integrating it within contemporary cognitive-linguistic paradigms.

Members of the Research Group II:

• Petr Kos
• Jan Radimský
• Pavel Štichauer
• Maria Silvia Micheli