Brno: Univerzita J.E. Purkyně. 1990. — 149 s.The present book is intended as the first part of a more extensive work to be devoted to the comparison of the syntactic system of contemporary Slavonic standard languages. Attention is paid to each language in its present form only, although the most relevant diachronic facts are taken into account. The term „basic structures should be understood as referring to elementary monopropositional sentences (in which, naturally, the finite verb may be implicit) with primary implementation of their semantic, pragmatic and formal parameters. All derived or modified structures are essentially avoided, since the author regards the undogmatic distinction of basic and sentence structures as important and sees it as one of positive contributions of transformational generative syntactology. The whole publication is based on the author’s own extensive excerption from texts in all the Slavonic languages, as well as on information about the function of various constructions, provided by native speakers — the author’s colleagues and friends.
The contents of this publication can be divided into two large sections. The first deals with general questions concerning the research of the syntax of Slavonic languages. In chapter I the object, aim and general methodology are outlined (§ 1—6), then in chapter II existing important comparative syntactic works are considered (§ 7—13). In chapter III the author outlines his treatment of the material, taking into account the above mentioned dichotomy of basic and derived structures, and an illustration of derivational methodology is given to elucidate the deep and surface structures of concrete utterances (§ 14—22). The next chapter (IV) discusses the general syntactic character of a Slavonic sentence in confrontation with the West-European literary standard (23—29). One common feature of Slavonic languages is the frequent asymmetry of the predicative base of a sentence, which is shown particularly by its surface and sometimes also deep mono-complex-organisation (cf. the frequency of single-member structures and the empty left-valency position of the predicate) and by the absence of formal congruence between the predicate and subject (cf. esp. the predicative instrumental). The final chapter (V) of this general section presents an internal comparison of the differences in characteristics of all twelve Slavonic literary languages (30—40), based on the following criteria: the degree of asymmetry in the formation of a predicative base (32), the functional distribution of the predicators habere/esse (32), the various ways of expressing the non-agency perspective (34) and voluntative-modalization (35). References are made to the dependence of syntactic phenomena upon those on a morphologic level (cf. the absence of conjugated forms of the verb esse in the present tense in East Slavonic languages, the varying frequency of short/long forms of adjectives, the expression of negation in the compound past, e. g. Cz. Neviděl jsem ho :: S.-C. Nisam ga video).
Then follows a generalizing and comparative description of the characteristics of the syntactic system of the East Slavonic (37), West Slavonic (38) and South Slavonic regions (39); of course, Polish syntax contains some interesting isoglosses with the East Slavonic region. At the end of the general section are outlined several hypotheses for the further elaboration of the difference in characteristics of each Slavonic language.
The second, essentially larger section of this book presents a concrete comparative description of basic sentence structures in Slavonic languages. These structures are classified and described from a semantic viewpoint of the predicate which, in the author’s opinion, may be divided on a high level of abstraction into the following five extensive classes: (1) process, (2) possession, (3) existence, (4) quality and (5) quantity can all be predicated. At the same time, possession (and existence in part, too) is also dealt with separately with regard to important structural differences on the level of expression, demonstrated here by Slavonic languages. All five classes include only those constructions which contain the left-valency actant of a predicate (grammatical subjet), whilst as far as constructions where this is absent are concerned, only process or quality may be predicated.
