Third-person preterite auxiliaries in Middle Czech as a sign of high style? An analysis of the Black Book of Velká Bíteš (1556-1636)
Abstract
The use of preterite auxiliaries in the third person was seen superfluous by sixteenth-century Bohemian grammarians, and existing research reserves their use for biblical and highly stylized texts. However, there is evidence that these forms also appear in texts from the opposite pole of the stylistic spectrum.
This paper analyses the Black Book (Smolná kniha) of Velká Bíteš in Moravia (1556-1636), which to some degree reflects the spoken Czech language of its time. The aim is to determine to what extent auxiliaries are preserved in this source and which factors have an impact on their distribution.
In addition to linguistic factors, such as the number and the aspect, we also consider non-linguistic influences, such as the scribe, the period/chronology, and the origin of the record.