Zkoumání sama sebe a sebe sama

• Authors: Klára Dvořáková

Title variants

EN

On the pronoun combinations sama sebe and sebe sama

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

Current codification describes the pronoun form sama as a) accusative, singular, masculine animate, b) nominative, singular, feminine, c) nominative, plural, neuter, and d) accusative, plural, neuter. However, when combined with the pronoun form sebe (sama sebe or sebe sama), it appears in different combinations of the grammatical case, number and gender in actual language use. Therefore, this study focuses on the usage of sama sebe / sebe sama in proofread written texts and compares the findings with codified recommendations to determine whether they align with current language norms. To achieve this, three corpora analyses were conducted: examining the combination of the pronouns following verb forms with accusative complements, following verbal nouns (which require genitive forms of complements), and following genitive prepositions. For this purpose, a corpus of contemporary written Czech SYN v12 was used. The results show that sama sebe / sebe sama is (quite) often used in ways that contradict current codification. Specifically, there are instances of uncodified combinations of grammatical gender and number forms ranging from 3.9% to 17.7% after verbs with accusative complements, 87.1% instances after verbal nouns, and 53.4% instances after genitive prepositions. Hence, the current codification should be revisited and updated in accordance with these findings.

Keywords

CS

kodifikace; sama sebe; sebe sama; valence; zájmeno sám; zájmeno se

EN

codification; pronoun sám; pronoun se; sama sebe; sebe sama; valency

• Publisher: Institute of the Czech Language, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Naše řeč (Our Speech)
• Year: 2025
• Volume: 108
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 79-92
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Klára Dvořáková

• Ústav pro jazyk český AV ČR, v. v. i., Letenská 123/4, 118 51 Praha 1, Czech Republic