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Czech structuralism at the end of the 1950s: an ideological struggle over the legacy of the Prague School

Author(s): Marie Havránková,Vladimír Petkevič / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2025

The article explores the history of linguistic structuralism in Czechoslovakia in 1957–1959 during a political thaw following Stalinist repression. Initially rejected in favour of dogmatic “theories” like Marrism and Stalin’s ideas on language, structuralism gained acceptance after its discussion in the Soviet journal ʻVoprosy iazykoznaniia’ in 1956. The first part analyses how structuralism, once ideologically dismissed, was reintroduced as a valuable methodology within official Marxist science. This was notably demonstrated at the 1958 4th International Congress of Slavists in Moscow, where the Prague Linguistic Circle’s “new theses” were presented, reflecting on its past development. The second part examines a 1959 polemic between two prominent linguists: František Trávníček, a member of the National Assembly of the Czechoslovak Republic, and Bohuslav Havránek, head of the Czech Language Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. Trávníček criticized the work of the Academy in a series of texts, while Havránek responded by refuting the criticism and defending structuralism. The polemic revealed Trávníček’s reliance on politicized clichés, whereas Havránek upheld structuralist theory as a rigorous scientific approach. This stance was further affirmed at the 1962 Liblice conference, where Havránek openly defended the principles of structural linguistics.

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A critical examination of the notion of norm in literary structuralism and film historiography

Author(s): Radomir D. Kokeš / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2025

The article critically examines the notion of (aesthetic) norm as developed by Jan Mukařovský and its later applications in David Bordwell’s poetics of cinema. It distinguishes between two approaches to the concept of norm in Mukařovský’s work – the systemic and the explanatory – and traces how each influenced different research programs: Czech literary structuralism and American neoformalist poetics of cinema. It then explores how Bordwell operationalized the notion of norm as a methodological tool, demonstrating its shifting analytical role across his works. It also situates this discussion within a transdisciplinary framework, highlighting how literary scholars can engage with the empirical potential of the notion of norm, while film scholars can benefit from a deeper understanding of its theoretical foundations. The conclusion proposes a reconsideration of norms as a tool for studying artistic creativity, linking them to debates on conventions and historiography.

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The Divergent or Convergent Paths of Law and Emotions in William Shakespeare’s Plays. Introductory Remarks

Author(s): Katarzyna Jaworska-Biskup / Language(s): English Issue: 15/2024

The paper provides an introduction to law and emotions in William Shakespeare’s plays. It briefly discusses the existing research in the field of affect and the law and how those two dimensions are reflected in Shakespeare’s literature. The Author also briefly comments on the research outcomes of the Contributors to the current volume

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Retributivism Gone Mad: Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure

Author(s): David A.J. Richards / Language(s): English Issue: 15/2024

Measure for Measure is ostensibly a comedy (no one dies, and the main penalties at the play’s end are, hilariously, requiring marriage), but it is a much darker comedy than any other Shakespeare wrote written after Hamlet, retaining features of that play’s moral nihilism. Its nihilism takes the form of a criticism of the claims of strong retributivism as a basis for criminal justice, namely, that it is necessary and sufficient for punishment that there be a moral wrong, and the nature of punishment is to be determined by the nature of the wrong (thus, death for killing). The play focusses on the criminalisation of two forms of consensual sex: the commercial sex business of Mistress Overdone and Pompey, her servant, and the non-commercial loving sex of Claudio with Juliet, now pregnant, who shortly intend to marry. The play questions the first comically, the second tragically. The article explores the play’s indictment of strong retributivism, and charts a path to an alternative, namely, restorative justice.

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“The Sense of Death is Most in Apprehension” Law and Death in Augustine, Donne and Measure for Measure

Author(s): Terry Reilly / Language(s): English Issue: 15/2024

Early modern English law recognised two forms of death that are mostly unfamiliar to modern culture – civiliten mortuus, a term in Civil Law to indicate that a criminal convicted of a capital crime was considered dead at the time of conviction, not when he was executed, and mortuus saeculo, referring to the form of “secular death” which occurred when a man or woman entered a religious order, such as a convent or monastery (Clarkson and Warren: 261). After developing legal and literary contexts about the contemporary discourse concerning death, using legal cases and selected works of Augustine and John Donne this paper examines representations of these legal definitions of death in Shakespeare’s play Measure for Measure.

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Флексивното разграничаване на съществителните от мъжки и женски род в множествено число в българския книжовен език през Възраждането

Author(s): Lachezar Perchekliyski / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: Special/2025

The article examines the problem of identifying the dictionary form and grammatical gender of nouns with the suffixes -(н)ик and -(н)ица occurring only in the plural in Bulgarian Revival texts. This difficulty arises from several factors: 1) in the 19th century, many dialectal words, as well as specialised terms form various spheres of public life entered the Bulgarian literary language; 2) no comprehensive dictionaries documenting the lexical richness of the language existed; 3) the plural endings of nouns with the suffixes -(н)ик and -(н)ица historically converged (-ници and -ици). Given these circum-stances, researchers can rely on the written distinctions between the nominative and accusative forms of masculine plural nouns, as well as the graphical differentiation between the nominative plural endings of masculine and feminine nouns. Lexicographic works published after the Liberation also played an important role. Further, the article explores how 19th-century grammar books, published in the second and third quarters of the century, addressed the issue of differentiating plural noun endings. Several examples from the 1871 Bible, provided in the study, illustrate how the problem of deter-mining the dictionary form of plural nouns with the suffixes -(н)ик and -(н)ица was resolved in practice.

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Прилагателни имена, завършващи на -ен, с омонимия в основната форма и различно формоизменение

Author(s): Milen Tomov,Iliyana Kuneva,Lora Zheleva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: Special/2025

This article analyses Bulgarian adjectives ending in -ен, with a matching dictionary form and varying inflections in the remaining forms, such as балонен ‘of or pertaining to a balloon’ – балонена, балонна. The difference in forms is attributed to the loss of -e- in one of the adjectives. While some cases involve homonyms (кожен, кожена ‘made of leather’ and кожен, кожна ‘of or pertaining to the skin’), others reflect variation in non-terminological usage, where, in terminological contexts, only the adjective with the loss of -e- should be used (for example, бетонена/бетонна стена ‘concrete wall’, but бетонна база ‘concrete base’). In addition, some adjectives are not usage-specific and exist as doublets (теменужена и теменужна ‘of or pertaining to violets/having the colour of violets’). Based on this classification, it is concluded that further research is required on the second type of adjectives, with the aim of formulating recommendations for each specific case.

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Съществителните собствени имена от общ граматичен род в българския език

Author(s): Radostina Koleva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: Special/2025

This paper examines common-gender personal names in contemporary Bulgarian, with a particular focus on the formation of their plural, definite and vocative forms. These anthroponyms can belong to masculine or feminine (but not neuter) gender, as in Alex and Kris; to masculine, feminine or neuter gender, e.g. Toni, Niki and Nase(to); to masculine or neuter gender: Zhore(to), Mite(to); or to feminine or neuter gender, as in Mi-mi(to) and Gerganche(to). The formation of the grammatical forms of such nouns has not been the subject of detailed study in Bulgarian linguistics. These personal names fall into the category of gender-defective nouns in contemporary Bulgarian, i.e. lexemes whose gender cannot be determined unambiguously. The study provides a critical re-view of key perspectives on the topic in Bulgarian linguistics, including the works of Ruselina Nitsolova, Stoyan Burov, Stefan Gardev and Krasimira Chakarova, among others. We adopt Krasimira Chakarova’s classification, which divides these anthroponyms into two broad groups: (1) nouns with a semantically motivated common gender (subdivided into further categories) and (2) nouns with a structurally motivated com-mon gender (also divided into subgroups). The paper also explores why some anthroponyms take a definite article, while others do not, arguing that this variation is influenced by stylistic and pragmatic factors.

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Ефектът на лексикалната честотност върху регресивната асимилацията на обструентите по признака звучност

Author(s): Bistra Andreeva,Mitko Sabev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: Special/2025

This study investigates the relationship between the frequency (or predictability) of linguistic units and the anticipatory voice assimilation of obstruents in Bulgarian. Using a speech corpus and word-level language models, we calculate the surprisal of word forms ending in the consonants /t/, /ʃ/, and /x/ in inflectional and lexical morphemes. We then employ a linear mixed model (LMM) to analyse how surprisal, the voicing of the following obstruent, and morpheme type affect the voicing realised in the examined consonants. The findings demonstrate that linguistic predictability affects articulatory precision by modulating the degree of anticipatory assimilation, with different effect sizes for different morpheme types. More specifically, obstruents in less predictable words are articulated with greater precision than those in more predictable words, especially within lexical morphemes. This reveals a complex interaction between information density, morphology and articulation, providing avenues for further research in phonetics and phonology.

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Към въпроса за същността на футурум претерити в съвременния български език

Author(s): Irena Ruseva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: Special/2025

In Bulgarian linguistic literature, futurum praeteriti has traditionally been interpreted not only as a temporal but also as a modal verb form, capable of expressing a conditional meaning. The idea of a certain similarity between futurum praeteriti and the conditional mood has persisted to the present day, with various authors exploring the connection between the primarily temporal futurum praeteriti forms and conditional modal semantics. This study outlines the main perspectives on the functional-semantic characteristics of the futurum praeteriti in Bulgarian linguistics, along with the specifics of its formation. Furthermore, the article presents our own hypothesis regarding the place of futurum praeteriti forms within the Bulgarian verb paradigm and examines their relation to the conditional mood.

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Континуалността като феномен на семантичната деривация в славянските диалектни означения на времето

Author(s): Mikhail Kondratenko / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: Special/2025

The article examines the phenomenon of semantic continuity in the South Slavic (Bulgarian) and North Slavic temporal lexis. Dialectal polysemantic words denoting time as a general concept, as well as its periods, often acquire meanings from other conceptual spheres. This semantic convergence is based on a shared image or symbol, creating a transition from one lexical meaning to another, known as continuity. By semantic continuity, we refer to the non-discreteness of the semantic sphere of words, which includes the gradual transition of lexical meanings between different semantic spheres. The dialectal Slavic material reveals that the semantics of time is inseparable from that of space, as well as from various aspects of human history and economic and cultural life. Another notable feature in the interpretation of time in the polysemous Slavic dialectal lexis is the lack of clear boundaries between the designations of the past, present and future. Across the Slavic linguistic area, polysemous lexemes are attested that synthesise the concept of time as a continuous space, with fragments that are not separated from each other, illustrating how, in folk consciousness, the past transitions into the present and the present into the future, thus forming a unified temporal continuum.

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Лексикосемантична характеристика на говора в с. Брезе, Девинско

Author(s): Elena Kanevska-Nikolova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: Special/2025

The article offers a lexicosemantic analysis of an understudied Rhodope dialect spoken in the village of Breze, in the Devin region, and compares it with other Rhodope dia-lects. The study identifies several main thematic groups in the collected lexical material and examines the origins of the included lexemes. Additionally, it explores instances of synonymy and polysemy observed in the dialect.

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Ударение при формообразуването на съществителните, прилагателните и числителните имена в банския говор

Author(s): Radoslav Tsonev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: Special/2025

This article presents the accent paradigms emerging from the different forms of nouns, adjectives and numerals in the Bansko dialect. This dialect tends to stabilise the accent in specific rhythmic-intonational groups, where stress distribution occurs within the boundaries of a single phonetic word. In such accent systems, the combined influence of morphological and rhythmic-intonational (syntactic) factors leads to the development of a distinct rhythmic melody. In the Bansko dialect, this phenomenon is observed both in phrases containing a phonetic word (base word + enclitic) and in polysyllabic (four-syllable or longer) words with double stress.

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The Ambiguity of Milk: Lactation and Maternal Identity in Shakespeare’s Macbeth

Author(s): Hanna Gęba / Language(s): English Issue: 15/2024

This article discusses the motif of lactation in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Breastfeeding was an ambiguous phenomenon for Shakespeare’s contemporaries – it meant both an absolute power over the nursing child and an act of self-sacrifice, often out of love. It is no coincidence that Lady Macbeth admits she “had given suck” and that in her monologue directed to “spirits” she asks them to “take her milk for gall” to do dark deeds. The article’s main methodological contexts are the medical knowledge and superstitions about breastfeeding in Early Modern England and sexual difference feminism as it is understood in the works of Elizabeth Grosz and Rosi Braidotti. The argument for such a combination is the non-dichotomic perception of the mind and body relationship in both Shakespeare’s times and these scholars’ theories. By closely examining the motif of lactation we can better understand how Shakespeare depicts motherhood and how he constructs maternal figures in the Scottish Tragedy.

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„Kvietí sě zjevilo na našie zemi.“ Geneze dorotejského diskursu a tři staročeská kázání ke svaté Dorotě

Author(s): Vendula Rejzlová / Language(s): Czech Issue: 2/2025

Three Old Czech sermon collections – Passionál (Passional; autograph, c. 1357), Kázání dzikovská na okruh de sanctis (Dzikov sermons on the de Sanctis Cycle; sole surviving manuscript from the 1420s), and Sbírka kázaní založených na legendách (A collection of sermons based on legends; sole surviving manuscript, likely completed in 1453) – were produced over a span of a century, drawing from original Latin sources of Dominican origin: Legenda aurea (c. 1267) by Jacobus de Voragine and Sermones de Sanctis (c. 1295 – 1304) by Peregrinus of Opole. All three Old Czech collections include sermons on Dorothea of Caesarea, a virgin and martyr whose cult became popular in Central Europe from the 13th century and saw significant expansion in the 14th century. However, neither Jacobus’s nor Peregrinus’s original collections contained a section on Saint Dorothy, meaning that the anonymous preachers had to rely on other sources. This study first traces the development of Saint Dorothy’s hagiography and then explores its dissemination in the Czech lands from the mid-14th century onward. A comparative analysis reveals that each of the three Old Czech texts underwent a distinct evolution and represents a different sermon type: two distinct passiones serving as exempla and a classical thematic sermon.

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Když se Pán Bůh v hněvu svém rozpálí. Česká kázání o katastrofách z období pozdního humanismu a Malé doby ledové

Author(s): Marie Hanzelková / Language(s): Czech Issue: 2/2025

Between 1550 and 1620, nearly twenty sermons and treatises on natural disasters were published, mostly in Prague. Their authors, Utraquist priests, responded to contemporary catastrophic events – plague epidemics, earthquakes, storms, floods, fires, famine, war, and locust infestations – as well as celestial phenomena and monstrous births. Reflecting the intellectual landscape of the time, these sermons also incorporated scientific findings, micro-stories, and songs or prayers. All sermons interpreted catastrophes as divine messages: expressions of God’s wrath, signs of the approaching Judgment Day, but also manifestations of God’s fatherly care and love. This paper explores the representation of catastrophes and the oscillation of preachers between established literary topoi and individual authorial experience. Additionally, I examine the role of climatic stress and the broader social crisis of the period in as reflected in what is known as Wunderzeichen literature and consider how the society responded to these challenges.

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Gestika v raně novověkém herectví (a kazatelství?)

Author(s): Magdaléna Jacková / Language(s): Czech Issue: 2/2025

The performative aspect – delivery – was considered a crucial, if not the most important, component of rhetoric already in antiquity. This was undoubtedly also true for early modern homiletics. However, this aspect of sermons remains virtually unknown today, primarily because it could not be recorded in its time. Apart from visual representation, we must therefore rely on theoretical works whose authors, at least to some extent, addressed the performative form of preaching. These include both classical works, which served as the primary sources of inspiration in the early modern period, and contemporary studies. This paper aims to provide an overview, based on selected works, of the types of gestures preachers may have used during this period and the principles and rules that guided them. The starting point is Institutio oratoria by Marcus Fabius Quintilian, who, alongside Cicero, is regarded as the foremost authority in rhetoric, as well as two works by Jesuit authors: Joseph de Jouvancy’s De ratione discendi et docendi and Franz Lang’s poetics Dissertatio de actione scenica.

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Czy milkną muzy, gdy grają armaty? Perspektywa antropologiczna w romansie Adam i Ewa Sergiusza Piaseckiego

Author(s): Jakub Horbacz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 15/2024

The article is a reading of the work by Sergiusz Piasecki (1899–1964) Adam and Ewa by approaching love in confrontation with the system from an anthropological perspective. Piasecki’s tragic romance is subjected to a critical sketch in a research approach to the affective turn, placing in the center the feelings and emotions of the main characters, as well as the author of the text himself. Piasecki’s words become a determinant about two great loves – Adam’s for Eve and the author’s love for Vilnius and the Vilnius region. For the proper reception of the work, the chosen practice of close reading remains important – focused reading, emphasizing what is detailed, the elements of articulating love and describing the system, as well as specific parts of the work. The whole thing is an attempt at an answer to the question whether the muses fall silent when cannons play in understanding whether love ultimately kills war and the political system. The verification of the meanings hidden in the romance Adam i Ewa does not avoid confrontation with historical and philosophical contexts, thus building a colorful portrait of the Polish, especially Vilnius, socio-political situation in 1939 and the outbreak of World War II, at the intersection of feelings and the system.

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Aspekt lokálneho v toponomastických prácach Antona Habovštiaka

Author(s): Patrik Jakubek / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 2/2024

Anton Habovštiak, known in the wide linguistic sphere primarily as an excellent dialectologist, in addition to his main scientific activity in dialectology, was also engaged in the onomastic sphere, especially in the field of anoikonyms. His toponomastic works, culminated in the summarizing monograph Oravské chotárne názvy [Field Names of the Orava Region] (1970), are significant in their structure not only as a sociolinguistic probe into the life of the former inhabitants of his native Orava and their connection with the use of the language, but above all for their enormous contribution to the then beginnings of nationwide anoikonymy research and the creation of Slovak onomastics as such in the second half of the 20th century. The linking of the sociolinguistic aspect with the traditional onomastic and dialectological element can be described as a novelty of the time, which undoubtedly deserves closer attention. Therefore, the primary aim of the paper is a comprehensive presentation of this selected and still inspiring onomastic segment in the otherwise rich and varied scientific research activity of this renowned Slovak linguist.

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Vplyv nárečovej a historickej lexiky na poetiku a intencionalitu literárnych (povesťových) textov Antona Habovštiaka

Author(s): Peter Karpinský / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 2/2024

The paper focuses on the study of temporal and territorial lexis in Anton Habovštiak’s folklore collection Skamenená dievka [Petrified Girl] (1977), primarily analysing the occurrence and functional use of archaic, historical, and dialectal elements. It examines how these lexemes influence the interpretation of these texts and their poetics to intentionality (the text’s focus on a child recipient). Special attention is given to temporal lexis, intended to characterize different regions of Slovakia, as the folklore collection displays a heteroregional character. The presence or absence of dialectal words is particularly monitored. Another partial topic of the paper is the investigation of how outdated prefixes and suffixes create the archaic character of the text. The paper identifies these elements and examines their impact on the historical, cultural, and linguistic context of Habovštiak’s tales, highlighting a certain temporal universality of his literary expression.

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