The study is concerned with temporal meaning of Czech adjectives of the types -ící/-oucí (1) and -(v)ší (2) which are – by and large – paradigmatically derived from imperfective (1) and perfective (2) verbs. In opposition to the traditional view, linking their relative time meaning with the absolute time expressed by the respective predicate, a different and probably more adequate analysis is proposed, relating it to the time included in the denotative information of the corresponding noun. In rare cases, the adjectives are derived from an unusual base, e.g. the type (1) from a perfective verb – their grammaticality is also discussed here.
The adjective derived from the present active participle of imperfective verbs (called ‘přechodník’ in Czech; e.g. the adjective dělající derived from the imperfective participle dělajíc) is very common in present-day written Czech. On the contrary, the adjective derived from the present active participle of perfective verbs (e.g. udělající derived from udělajíc) is extremely rare in written texts and perhaps non-existent for the native speaker of the Czech language. That is why all grammars of Czech either argue that this kind of verbal adjective does not exist in Czech or they do not mention it at all. In this paper, I try to show that this claim (or implicit assumption) is false. This type of adjective cannot be declared as non-existent because tens (and maybe hundreds) of different adjectives of the respective type (udělající) are used in standard texts on the internet. It is also shown in this paper that this adjective cannot be rejected as non-systemic either. The last grammaticality criterion is valid as well: the general textual function of the verbal adjective is a nominalization of the potential attributive clause (e.g. vytvořící for který vytvoří – creating (perfective) for who will create (perfective).
Approximately 6000 inanimate appellative masculine nouns in the locative singular case are used in contemporary written Czech. About 400 of these nouns use both the -u and the -ě/-e ending. In about 200 nouns the two variant endings occur in a frequency equilibrium or the historical primary -ě/-e prevails. The nouns which end with the -h,-g,-f consonants use only the -u ending without exception. The nouns that end with -k, -ch, -r, i.e. the consonants that alternate with -č, -š, -ř, and also the nouns ending with -p, -b, -m, which do not alternate, use only the -u ending as a norm, with only a very few exceptions found in standard written Czech. If the frequency and the historical progress of the -u ending are considered, the -ě/-e ending in some exceptional uses in nouns ending in -k, -ch, -r; -p, -b, -m can be regarded ungrammatical. The grammatical -ě/-e ending is used alternatively, or in rare cases, exclusively, with a considerable number of those nouns which end with -d, -t, -n, but mainly with -s, -z, -l.
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