Bohemica Olomucensia

The Word Order of Pronouns in Noun Phrases in the Czech Treatises of Jan Hus

The study examines the word order of pronouns functioning as modifiers or determiners within the noun phrase in Jan Hus's Czech-language treatises. It follows up on Navrátilová (2024), which focused on the word order of noun phrases in Hus's Czech and Latin correspondence. The present study thus constitutes a part of the broader research on word order in Hus's Czech- and Latin-language texts, with a particular focus on the noun-phrase syntax. The primary aim is to determine whether the word order of noun phrases in the Czech treatises differs from that found in Hus's Latin and Czech letters, and whether the genre of a given text therefore constitutes a significant factor in word-order variation. The material under the analysis comprises Hus's shorter texts, especially treatises and polemical works. Within these texts, three groups of pronouns were examined: (1) possessive pronouns, (2) demonstrative pronouns, and (3) totalizers (other pronoun groups were excluded due to their low frequency). Each group was then analyzed separately. Identical word-order behavior across the genres of correspondence and treatises was identified for demonstrative pronouns and for totalizers. By contrast, the analysis revealed that possessive pronouns demonstrate a higher frequency of postnominal position than is attested in Hus's Czech correspondence, while still showing a lower frequency of postnominal placement than that observed in the Latin correspondence. The study further investigated the factors underlying the substantial word-order variability manifested by possessive pronouns in the treatises. The principal factor shaping pronoun placement proved to be the citation or paraphrase of biblical texts or, alternatively, other ecclesiastical authorities. In contrast to Hus's correspondence, the treatises also show an increased frequency of the word-order configurations of circumposition and interposition.

Keywords: word order; Jan Hus; pronouns; noun phrase