A side view of syntactic constancy of adverbials between English and Czech

This paper is part of a long-term inquiry into interlingual constancy of clause elements, investigated on the basis of parallel English and Czech texts. The study was undertaken on the assumption that syntactic structure is subordinate to the FSP structure, whose major principle is final placement of the focal element, i.e. the principle of end focus (cf. Quirk et el. 1985:18.3), or the basic distribution of communicative dynamism, in domestic terms. However, in different languages this principle applies in a different degree, depending on the character of the respective language system, in particular on the type of word order connected with it. For English as a language with fixed word order it was accordingly assumed that if the principle of end focus is to be complied with, the syntactic function of a clause element must be consistent with its regular sentence position. This constraint does not apply to Czech, which has free word order, and is hence largely free to order sentence elements according to their FSP function, irrespective of their function in the syntactic structure of the sentence. Sentences with basic distribution of communicative dynamism in both languages could thus be expected to display the same ordering of semantic elements, but syntactically divergent where the sentence position of an element is inconsistent with a particular syntactic function in English. However, this assumption is not to be overestimated insofar as the final or postverbal position in English sentences appears to be occupied, not infrequently, by thematic elements as well (cf. Dušková 1999b:253-55). The fact that English, in consequence of its fixed word order, is less disposed to comply with the principle of end focus than languages with free word order passes unnoticed in works by English writers, and it is due to Jan Firbas that instances of noncompliance with the principle of end focus, or basic distribution of communicative dynamism, have been identified and explained from the viewpoint of functional sentence perspective. Nevertheless, the aim of this paper is to provide evidence in support of the first tendency, i.e. the observation of the principle of end focus in English, even though it holds at the same time that in a noticeable number of instances thematic elements are found at the end.