Abstract
In agreement to the premise that verse as a particular speech form is seen against the background of everyday use of language, the article picks out several features of the acoustic structure of languages, whose presence influences the rhythmic organization of a text. Addressing the specific qualities of Czech, the discussion follows on from Miroslav Červenka's essays on the nature of Czech accentual-syllabic verse.
The marked predominance of syllabicity is then shown as confirmed by the characteristic of the language. The main influences are the stable form of the syllable, the potentiality of the word's accent, and the close link to the stress group of the word.