Abstract
The present study deals with Czech deadjectival derivates with the suffix -ost. In the Czech linguistics, the suffix is described as a monofunctional suffix that derives names of qualities (e.g. sladkost `sweetness’; qualitative meaning).
However, as the corpus data demonstrate that the suffix is commonly used for deriving names of bearers of quality (sladkost `sweet thing’; non-qualitative meaning) in contemporary Czech as well, we propose to consider both the names of qualities and the names of their bearers as direct deadjectival derivates with the suffix -ost. The proposal is supported by an analysis of large data from the SYN2010 corpus.
The material documents that, first of all, there is a relation between the frequency of a noun with the suffix -ost and its usage in the non-qualitative meaning and, secondly, that the existence of plural forms can be interpreted as a signal that the particular noun (except for the most frequent nouns) has a non-qualitative meaning.