English book titles in gerundial form

Abstract

The category of gerund is a symptomatic component of the grammatical system of present-day English. Numerous studies have dealt with its nature and functions as well as with its delimitation as opposed to related forms of present participle or verbal noun. No matter whether the term gerund is used or not and whether it is theoretically sustainable to differentiate between the related -ing forms, it is obvious that the -ing form that in many contexts clearly displays both nominal and verbal features plays a crucial role within both written and spoken discourse. Nonetheless, apart from the gerund operating within continuous texts, it is revealing to explore its behaviour and functions in the text-frame components, particularly the title, i.e. a text-frame component with a crucial role in the printed publication of a book type. In this context, it is necessary to present 3 basic starting points of the present study: 1. the notion of gerund as a grammatical category is retained in this study (see 2.1.3); 2. a new term - gerund title l - is introduced in order to capture the analyzed structures (see the detailed characterization in 2.3); 3. the analysis is largely based on the functional approach.

Predkhidami diplomova prace vychazi z pracovniho predpokladu, ze gerundium (tj. ing-ova forma, v niz se snoubi nominalni rysy s verbalnimi) hraje dulezitou roli nejen v kontinualnim psanem Ci mluvenem diskurzu, nybd i v ramcovy-ch sIoZkach textu, zvlaste pak titulu. Na zaklade tohoto predpokladu si klade za Ukol provest komplexni analyzu soucasneho angIickeho gerundialniho tituIu s ciIem podat jeho: 1. syntakticko-semantickou charakteristiku; 2. komunikativni charakteristiku; 3. prekladove moznosti pn prevodu do cestiny, tj. typoIogicky odlisneho jazyka postradajiciho gramatickou kategorii gerundia. Prace se sklada ze ctyr zakladnich oddilu. Uvodni oddil formuluje zakladni predpoklady a cile prace (viz vy-se), dale popisuje liZitou metodologii. Jako reprezentativni zdroj jazykovy-ch dat byla zvolena Britska narodni bibliografie (dale BNB). Z teto databaze byla vytvorena mnozina kniznich titulu spluujicich tato kriteria: (a) jazyk publikace - anglictina, (b) misto vydani - Anglie (tzn. nikoliv Velka Britanie), (c) rok vydani - 2004, (d) stylova oblast - neumelecke funkcni styly (tj. vecne informacni a persvazivni funkcni styly). Takto vytvorena mnozina obsahuje 34405 titulu a sloliZi k ziskani zakladnich frekvencnich udaju, dale pak ke zmapovani syntaktickych a semantickYch rysu 30 skupin gerundialnich...