Ach, ty zatracené neutra: Realizace shody v plurálu
Oh, those damn neuters: The realization of plural agreement with neuter nouns

Summary/Abstract: The current codification of neuter plural agreement in Czech does not fully reflect contemporary usage and has no convincing support in arguments from a functional or communicative perspective. This article presents the results of a corpus analysis focusing on agreement in the noun phrase (nová/é/ý města ‘new towns’) and in the active participle (města byla/y ‘towns were’) with respect to the variability of Czech registers. The analysis of the frequencies of variants in eight different corpora representing various types of written texts, internet communication and spoken registers shows that the occurrence of non-codified forms is influenced by the mode of communication (written vs. spoken), and the degree of formality and spontaneity of the given communication; e.g., in more formal and prepared monologues, non-codified variants are as frequent as the codified ones. Exclusive occurrence of the codified forms can be detected only in those written texts whose authors take considerable account of the codification. The results of the study highlight the need to reconceptualise the language policy of Czech.

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