Personal and possessive pronouns in Czech for foreigners: complexity and simplification in the mirror of current language use
Abstract
The present paper focuses on variant forms of personal pronouns on / ono (he / it) and possessive pronouns můj / tvůj / svůj (my / your / oneself's ) from the perspective of teaching Czech as a foreign language. The paradigm of these personal and possessive pronouns is characterized by the coexistence of variant forms, which the foreign students have to face at the very beginning of learning Czech.
Hence, the textbooks of Czech attempt in different ways to reduce the number of variants in order to simplify the complexity of paradigms. However, if such simplification is to be precise and adequate, it should rely on comprehensive knowledge of current language use, which the corpus data may significantly contribute to.
On the basis of the data from the synchronic written corpus of Czech SYN2010, the paper aims to find out the frequency and distribution of variant forms of personal and possessive pronouns in current Czech and to make conclusions with respect to the presentation of pronominal paradigms in Czech for foreigners, which should meet the requirement of adequacy and simplicity and favour frequent and progressive forms.