The verb jít as a representative of a motion event in space in texts by non-native speakers of Czech

The verb jít as arepresentative of amotion event in space in texts by non-native speakers of Czech Svatava Škodová ABSTRACT: The aim of this paper is to offer an analysis of the uses of the verb jít ‘go’ by non-native speakers of Czech. Using quantitative and qualitative analysis based on data drawn from the CzeSL corpus, we will point out the specifics of use of this important verb in the written communication of nonnative speakers of Czech. This research is not concerned with error analysis, but instead focuses on the overall picture of semantic uses of this verb by non-native speakers of Czech. The resulting analysis should contribute to amethodical description of the teaching of the verb jít within the grammatical and lexical system of Czech for foreigners. The current paper is based on alearner corpus of Czech as aforeign language, the CzeSL-SGT (Czech as aSecond Language). The CzeSL corpus contains 12,388 texts (960,000 words) and offers both linguistic and error annotation; the error annotation is based on two target hypotheses. From these texts, 5,785 occurrences of use of the verb jít were excerpted and analysed for their valency and semantic patterns, prepositional co-occurrence, collocation and lexical use. The results of the analysis are discussed in the context of the individual levels of the Common European Framework of Reference. KLÍČOVÁ SLOVA / KEY WORDS: čeština jako cizí jazyk, SERR, korpusová lingvistika, slovesa pohybu, pohybová událost Czech as aforeign language, CEFR, corpus linguistics, verbs of movement, motion event 1. INTRODUCTION The verb jít ‘go’ is one of the basic verbs that express motion events and encode the human perception of space in all languages. This verb is part of the core vocabulary of any language which over time undergoes various phases of grammaticalisation as well as metaphorical extensions of basic meaning. Our experience with walking as aregular rhythmic movement between two points is aconceptual scheme (cf. also Saicová Římalová and Shih-hui Lin’s papers in this issue) that we also apply to other situations in our lives, adapting the original meaning of step-by-step motion to other objects and abstract phenomena.1 No one learning anew language can avoid this verb. The question is whether the shared experience with the use of this verb in our native language is amotivation for its more frequent use in another. This paper analyses motion events encoded with the verb jít2 primarily because it is one of the first verbs that speakers of other languages learn when studying Czech as 1 Cf. Saicová Římalová (2009). 2 The verb jít is examined in more detail in Zasina & Škodová (2020). OPEN ACCESS SVATAVA ŠKODOVá 89 aforeign language (CFL) and because it can be found in texts describing all levels of the acquisition of Czech in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). Moreover, it is also one of the central verbs in all languages, which is why it carries various grammatical functions as well as different meanings and conceptual patterns that can manifest in various ways when learning Czech. The verb jít is mainly connected with physical spaces and movement through them, but it can also very easily apply to other events that are metaphorically interpreted as movement through space.3 2. BASIC GRAMMATICAL AND SEMANTIC DESCRIPTIONS OF THE VERB JÍT IN LITERATURE The verb jít is one of the most frequent verbs in Czech, but also one of those with the most varied spectra of meanings. According to Frekvenční slovník češtiny (Čermák, Křen et al., 2004), the verb jít ranks as the 65th most common Czech full word. Statistiky češtiny (Bartoň et al., 2009, p.182) lists the verb jít as the fifth most common verb (by absolute frequency) with the infinitive object valency, i.e. whose object may be expressed by an infinitive. It ranks behind the verbs mít, moci/moct, muset and chtít ‘have, can/may, must and want’, i.e. non-autosemantic verbs that act as grammatical components in an analytical predicate. The case is similar in verbs with the infinitive subject valency: here jít ranks behind the same four and the verb být ‘be’. According to Těšitelová (1987, p.42), jít places seventh by absolute frequency of use, after být, mít, moci, muset, chtít. Těšitelová (ibid.) points out some of the specifics of highly frequent verbs: the most common after být and mít are modal verbs, i.e. those that express the will of the language user, their volitional relation towards an event, activity etc. The second (stronger) group is formed by words that could be characterised as autosemantic: these describe basic human activities, i.e. what people examine with their reason and sight and their ability to speak, move and think (respecting the order of the most frequent verbs). According to Těšitelová, the most common autosemantic verbs after the verb jít are říci, vidět, dát (se), přijít, myslit ‘say, see, give, come, think’. The dictionary Slovník spisovné češtiny (SSČ, 2000, p.123) describes 16 meanings of the verb jít, which is significantly more than what is claimed for the more frequent verbs. For example, in the case of mít, the dictionary lists only 14 autosemantic meanings, 4 modal meanings, 5 copular meanings and 7 more meanings as aformal verb (ibid., p.182), and for the verb být only three autosemantic meanings and two more as acopular verb (ibid., p.40). It is however important to note that in the case of být and mít, the dictionary separates the definitions for their autosemantic and their grammatical uses. The verb jít lacks this differentiation,4 even though the 3 For amore detailed analysis, see Saicová Římalová (2010). 4 For an analysis of the grammatical function of the verb jít as the formal component of an analytical predicate expressing acurrent event, see Škodová (2017). OPEN ACCESS 90 STUDIE ZAPLIKOVANÉ LINGVISTIKY  authors were clearly aware of its grammatical functions; e.g. meaning 13, jde to, defined as “je to možné, proveditelné: to by šlo, tak to dál nepůjde [it is possible, doable: that’s possible, this cannot continue]; colloquially with infinitive Dveře nejdou zavřít: nelze [the door won’t close: impossible]” (ibid., p.123), has astrongly modal character. The verb jít is also important in phraseology. See e.g. Slovník české frazeologie aidiomatiky which lists 75 entries with the verb jít (SČFI, Výrazy slovesné A–P, 1994, pp.302–309). The meanings of the verb jít from acognitive perspective were examined by Saicová Římalová (2010), who describes their semantic structures using scales of individual meanings. In some of these scales, Saicová Římalová claims that the verb jít is “emptied of verbal meaning” (ibid., p.78); she also refers to Masjak’s paper on grammaticalisation which mentions that the verb go is used in many languages as agrammatical means for expressing future or past events, imperfectiveness or perfectiveness as well as various inchoative, terminative, imperative or passive meanings (ibid., pp.74–75). The grammatical uses of the verb jít in the predicate were discussed by Dokulil (1949, pp.81–92) who compares grammatical constructions with atarget infinitive: The core domain of phrases with the verb býti [to be] with the infinitive is the past tense and their general necessity is caused by the fact that verbs of motion by themselves cannot express true completeness of an activity seen as awhole. We cannot therefore say otec šel navštívit nemocnou babičku [the father went to visit the ill grandmother] if we know that he has already come back (unless this is acontinuous narrative unrelated to the presence of the speaker, as noted above) or has left somewhere else. This is where aphrase with the verb byl finds its domain: tatínek byl navštívit nemocnou babičku [the father was visiting the ill grandmother] (ibid., p.90). Asimilar comment on the verb jít can be found in Kopečný’s semantically focused Základy české skladby (1967, p.99). Kopečný considers phrases with the verb jít to be part of aspecial category of expressions “that cannot be understood as temporal forms sensu stricto, but which can be seen as their alternative and their close relatives: a) the intentional type jde (šel, půjde) nakupovat [goes / went / will go shopping] or nakoupit— and b) the resultative type (byl, bude) nakupovat or nakoupit [was / will go shopping].” Kopečný (ibid.) classifies these examples as “leaning towards an analytical future tense seen with -iti in Old Church Slavonic” and compares them to the modern French il va sonner midi (literally ‘he will go ring noon’, i.e. ‘the noon bells are about to ring’). Kopečný (ibid.) believes that these are not true analytical forms because “the infinitive still retains its character as an adverbial of purpose”, but explicitly mentions them as close to inchoative phrases of the začíná, začal, začne něco dělat ‘start / started / will start doing something’ type. These are phrases in which the infinitive cannot be considered atrue object. OPEN ACCESS SVATAVA ŠKODOVá 91 3. JÍT: PARTICIPANTS IN THE MOVEMENT SCHEME / VALENCY FRAMEWORK5 For the purposes of analysing the expressions of motion events using the verb jít in texts by non-native speakers of Czech, we must first define its basic semantic characteristics in Czech used as afirst language. Slovník spisovné češtiny (SSČ, 2000, p.123) defines the verb jít as “move purposefully (by steps) using one’s own legs”, meaning that the event described by the verb jít cannot be carried out by any means of transport and only concerns legs. Tautologically, however, this meaning may be emphasised by the adverb pěšky ‘on foot’ which does not combine with any other verb than jít. Similarly, Valenční slovník češtiny (VS, 1997, p.84) defines the verb jít as “move in asingle line using one’s own legs”. The course of amotion event expressed by the verb jít is shown in the diagram in Figure 1. Other meanings specify the type of the moving object, its direction/destination etc. Figure 1:Diagram of amotion event expressed by the verb jít. The most prominent meanings of the polysemic verb jít6 maintain the semantic component of motion; the less prominent ones prefer other components. The transformations of meaning are related to changes in the following factors: type of movement, nature of the destination / starting point / route and type of moving object. The prototypical meaning of the verb jít: — describes physical movement from one place to another; — the starting point and destination are both physical spaces; — the moving entity is ahuman; — the movement consists of discrete units (steps); — the entity moves over asolid surface. 5 The characterisation of participants in the movement scheme in section 1 draws on the analysis by Saicová Římalová (2010). 6 The meanings of the verb jít are not always clearly delineated and can be described using “scales” (Saicová Římalová, 2010, p.106); this analysis however will not use the concept of scales because this method proved to be unnecessarily sophisticated for the purposes of examining the uses of the verb jít in texts by non-native speakers. Regular movement measured by steps. It is never connected with the means of transport! (a car, bike, moto, train, etc.) START AIM OPEN ACCESS 92 STUDIE ZAPLIKOVANÉ LINGVISTIKY  Variations of this central meaning are aresponse to changes in: — the trajectory of the movement; — the nature of the starting point / destination;7 — and the nature of the moving entity. The next section will illustrate the central role of participants in the movement scheme of the verb jít in Czech. We will then examine the realisation of these schemes in written texts produced by non-native speakers of Czech. The analysis will specifically focus on the variability in the subject and object of the event. 3.1 THE AGENT OF THE mOTION EVENT: WHO Or WHAT GOES IN cZEcH? In order to characterise participants in the subject position, we will divide them into several categories: the prototypical, animal, group, machine and abstract type. All these participants can be expected to appear in texts by non-native speakers and are compatible with topics that non-native speakers write about as part of their learning of Czech as asecond language. 3.1.1 PrOTOTYPE In the prototypical semantic role, the agent of the event is ahuman being. Jan jde do školy. ‘Jan goes to school.’ 3.1.2 ANImALS Animals may perform the role of the agent. Not all animals however move in ways that are compatible with the verb jít.8 Neither textbooks of Czech for foreigners nor available dictionaries provide any instructions on which animals can use the verb jít. Pes, kočka, kůň, kráva, prase, ovce jde. ‘Adog, cat, horse, cow, pig, sheep goes.’ *Myš, *moucha, *pavouk, *pták atd. jde. ‘Amouse, fly, spider, bird, etc. goes.’ 7 On the importance of the destination participant in sentence patterns, cf. Daneš, Hlavsa et al. (1981, p.94). 8 In the academic years 2019 and 2020, Icarried out aresearch probe among various groups of international students at the Institute of Czech Studies, Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague, examining their awareness of the compatibility of the verb jít with the movement of various animals. The probe consisted of asample of about 80 students at levels B1, B2 and C1 and its results have not yet been published. All the students clearly lack conscious awareness of any criteria for using the verb jít with individual animals. Generally speaking, they tend to agree that animals go if they move on the ground. OPEN ACCESS SVATAVA ŠKODOVá 93 3.1.3 GrOUPS The verb jít can also be used to describe the movement of entities that exist in groups. Dav jde. ‘Acrowd goes.’ 3.1.4 mAcHINES In Czech, the verb jít is used to express the regular and invisible movement of machines. In fact, the verb jít indicates that the machine operates properly. Pračka, TV, motor jde. ‘Awashing machine, TV, motor goes. = it works’ 3.1.5 AbSTrAcT Another domain that uses the verb jít for the concept of motion is the domain of abstract entities that are perceived as regularly moving. Život jde dál. Hluk jde z ulice. life goes further noise goes from street ‘Life goes on.’ ‘Anoise is coming from the street.’ 3.2 DESTINATION OF THE mOVEmENT As mentioned above, in the case of the verb jít, destination is akey part of the motion scheme. Similarly to participants in the subject position, these participants can also be divided into the categories of aprototypical destination, ametonymic destination and an abstract destination. 3.2.1 PrOTOTYPE The prototypical destination of amovement is aphysical space, either aplace or an object. The aim of the movement is to relocate into that space. In Czech, the expression of the destination of movement is made more complicated because of various prepositions which allow for many possible use options. Non-native speakers particularly tend to struggle with the distinction between do and na.9 Jít do města. ‘Go to atown.’ Jít na poštu. ‘Go to apost office.’ 9 For more details about this distinction, cf. Hrdlička, 2000. OPEN ACCESS 94 STUDIE ZAPLIKOVANÉ LINGVISTIKY  3.2.2 mETONYmY In Czech, the destination of amovement may be expressed by the thing that is being sought at this destination. jít pro noviny jít pro lékaře jít na houby go for newspapers go for doctor go on mushrooms jít na pivo jít na nákup jít nakoupit go on beer go on shop-subst go to shop-verb 3.2.3 SEmANTIc EmPTYING Uses of the verb jít in which the movement itself carries little importance can be considered semantically emptied. In such phrases, what is expressed are the entities that we care about and that are at the centre of the event. The action itself is not expressed. jít se psem jít s odpadky jít s penězma go with dog go with trash go with money (= for awalk) (= to throw it out) (= to make adeposit at abank) One subcategory of this meaning is the collocation of the verb jít with various parts of the human body, typically in the instrumental case. In this use, the verb expresses consultation with aphysician that concerns the respective body part. jít s očima jít se zubama jít se zádama jít s nohama go with eyes go with teeth go with back go with legs 3.3 mETAPHOrIcAL mOVEmENT Saicová Římalová (2010) calls the act of transition into anew situation “metaphorical movement”. Typically, the verb jít combines with the name of an institution or phenomenon, or with another verb expressing the typical activity connected with this institution or phenomenon. The phrase expresses either the meaning “anew situation begins”: jít do důchodu jít na medicínu jít sedět go to pension go on medicine go to sit ‘retire’ ‘begin studies at afaculty of medicine’ ‘go to prison’ or “an activity commences”: jít do toho Pojďme mluvit o něčem jiném! go into that let’s go to speak about something different! ‘agree to do something’ ‘Let’s speak about something different!’ OPEN ACCESS SVATAVA ŠKODOVá 95 3.4 mOVEmENT OF INANImATE ENTITIES The movement of inanimate entities may be expressed by the verb jít in the case of actual regular movement of physical objects, such as dopis, kniha, opona ‘letter, book, curtain’ from point Ato point B, in the case of physical objects that do not move at all, such as okna, cesta ‘windows, path’ but to which the concept of motion is metaphorically applied, and in the case of abstract concepts ceny, chřipka ‘prices, the flu’ without any discernible motion. 3.4.1 rEGULAr PHYSIcAL mOVEmENT OF INANImATE ENTITIES Dopis jde 3 dny. Kniha šla z ruky do ruky. letter goes 3 days book went from hand to hand ‘It takes 3 days to deliver aletter.’ ‘Everybody wanted to borrow the book.’ Opona jde vzhůru. curtain goes up ‘The curtain rises.’ 3.4.2 mETAPHOrIcAL mOVEmENT OF INANImATE ENTITIES Ceny jdou nahoru. Jde na mě chřipka. prices go up. goes at me the flu ‘Prices rise.’ ‘Ifeel that I’m getting the flu.’ Cesta šla lesem. Okna jdou na ulici. path went through forest windows go to street ‘The path led through aforest.’ ‘The windows face the street.’ 3.5 THE GrAmmATIcAL FUNcTION OF THE VErb JÍT The final aspect of the use of the verb jít that we will focus on is its grammatical function. As mentioned in section 2, the grammatical function of the verb jít is not directly addressed in Czech grammars.10 It also remains undescribed in textbooks of Czech for foreigners. The verb jít is therefore taught only as an autosemantic. Despite that, we wanted to track the uses of the verb in the grammatical function in texts of the learner corpus because we assume that students’ perception may be influenced by the frequent use of the verb in real utterances by native speakers or affected by various transfer strategies. 10 For the grammatical functions of the verb jít, see Škodová (2016). OPEN ACCESS 96 STUDIE ZAPLIKOVANÉ LINGVISTIKY  3.5.1 NEAr FUTUrE JÍT + INF, JÍT + SUBSACC Like many other languages, Czech uses the verb jít to express the near future. In this use, the verb is followed by the infinitive of an autosemantic verb expressing the event or asubstantive that metonymically stands for the action performed on it. Jdu psát úkol. Jdu spát. Jdu pracovat. goI to write homework. goI to sleep goI to work ‘I’m going to do my homework.’ ‘I’m going to sleep.’ ‘I’m going to work.’ Jdu na to nádobí. Jdu na úkoly. goI on the dishes. goI on homework ‘I’m going to wash the dishes.’ ‘I’m going to do my homework.’ 3.6 mODAL FUNcTIONS Another grammatical function of the verb jít is its ability to express modal aspects of events: either abilities (i.e. someone can do something) or possibilities (i.e. something that may be done). The final function of the verb jít that we will examine expresses an individual’s focus on an event or again metonymically on an object standing for an event. 3.6.1 AbILITY Matematika mi jde dobře. mathematics to me goes well ‘Iam good at mathematics. (Iam able to / Ican do mathematics easily.)’ 3.6.2 POSSIbILITY Hodinky jdou spravit. Bez auta to nepůjde. watch goes to repair. without car not goes ‘The watch can be repaired.’ ‘This is not possible without acar.’ 3.6.3 AIm/cONcErN O co ti jde? O nic nejde. Jde mu o peníze. about what to you goesit? about nothing not goesit goesit to him about money ‘What are you after?’ ‘It’s no big deal.’ ‘He is after money.’ It is clear that from all the vocabulary and grammatical systems of Czech that nonnative speakers have to learn, the verb jít is among those that need to be studied very carefully from the very beginning of the process of language acquisition. If we were to briefly summarise all the information about the verb jít listed above, the difficulty in mastering its use lies in its diverse grammatical and semantic uses. From the gramOPEN ACCESS SVATAVA ŠKODOVá 103 A0 495 % A1 1,735 % A1+ 229 % A2 ATA % 1 procházku/walk 60 12,1 procházku/walk 183 10,5 procházku/walk 27 11,8 kina/cinema 205 13,3 2 tam/there 39 7,9 kina/cinema 169 9,7 spát/to sleep 23 10 procházku/walk 129 8,4 3 restaurace/restaurant 31 6,3 spát/to sleep 110 6,3 domů/home 17 7,4 restaurace/restaurant 75 4,9 4 domu/house 21 4,2 restaurace/restaurant 81 4,7 restaurace/restaurant 14 6,1 divadla/theatre 54 3,5 5 kina/cinema 21 4,2 domu/house 66 3,8 tam/there 11 4,8 spát/to sleep 48 3,1 6 školy/school 20 4 školy/school 64 3,7 klubu/club 9 3,9 film/film 48 3,1 7 domů/home 18 3,6 klubu/club 56 3,2 divadla/theatre 9 3,9 náměstí/square 44 2,9 8 náměstí/square 16 3,2 parku/park 44 2,5 náměstí/square 7 3,1 úkol/homework 44 2,9 9 klubu/club 13 2,6 domů/home 42 2,4 pivo/beer 7 3,1 nákup/purchase 43 2,8 10 most/bridge 11 2,2 nákup/purchase 39 2,3 kina/cinema 7 3,1 obchodu/shop 41 2,7 11 parku/park 11 2,2 oběd/lunch 39 2,3 oběd/lunch 6 2,6 oběd/lunch 37 2,4 12 divadla/theatre 11 2,2 náměstí/square 33 1,9 školy/school 6 2,6 tam/there 37 2,4 13 koncert/concert 5 2,2 domu/house 35 2,3 14 hospody/pub 33 2,1 15 klubu/club 33 2,1 A2+ 328 % B1 907 % B2 358 % C1 59 % 1 procházku/walk 33 10,1 kina/cinema 78 8,6 kina/cinema 30 8,4 restaurace/restaurant 4 6,8 2 domu/house 13 4 procházku/walk 76 8,4 procházku/walk 29 8,1 školy/school 3 5,1 3 tam/there 14 4,3 restaurace/restaurant 30 3,3 spát/to sleep 10 2,8 procházku/walk 2 3,4 4 restaurace/restaurant 12 3,7 tam/there 30 3,3 restaurace/restaurant 10 2,8 5spát/to sleep 11 3,4 domů/home 28 3,1 školy/school 8 2,2 6 parku/park 11 3,4 klubu/club 28 3,1 obchodu/shop 7 2 7 kina/cinema 11 3,4 spát/to sleep 27 3 ven/outside 6 1,7 8 školy/school 10 3,1 návštěvu/visit 18 2 9 domů/home 8 2,4 film/film 16 1,8 10 klubu/club 7 2,1 Table 6:Destinations in the 50 most common collocations. OPEN ACCESS 104 STUDIE ZAPLIKOVANÉ LINGVISTIKY  destination or purpose is the verb spát, i.e. jít spát (206 occurrences). Interestingly enough, this is the only frequently used verb in phrases where the verb jít expresses the commencement of an action described by an autosemantic verb. Concerning the overall motion event and its description, it should be noted that the authors most typically add aspecification of time, namely aspecific day of the week (vpátek, vsobotu ‘on Friday, Saturday’), atime of day (večer, ráno ‘in the evening, morning’), aspecific time (vX hodin ‘at X o’clock’) or an adverbial specification of the pak/potom/když ‘then/if/when’ type. Some of the examples with more than 100 occurrences also feature other participants: jít spolu, jít sněkým ‘go together, go with someone’. One important aspect of the description of the entire motion event is that barring some exceptions, the texts, to agreat extent, do not describe the means of the movement. It seems that non-native speakers consider the means of movement to be anegligible factor when describing an event with the verb jít. 6.3 ANALYSIS OF THE PrEPOSITIONS USED IN THE VALENcY OF THE VErb JÍT The overall picture of the expression of motion events using the verb jít can be further improved through quantitative analysis of the use of prepositions with the destination participant. As Table 7 illustrates, across all levels, learners have at their disposal abroad range of prepositions that they can use. Typically, these are prepositions connected to the destination participant i.e. do, na and also the dative preposition kwhich expresses movement towards adestination. The use of the prepositions z/ze which relate to the starting point participant is negligible; these prepositions are encountered only at levels B1 and B2 and in both cases in the least frequent category. This confirms our claim in section 2 that the starting point participant is the least important factor of the motion event. On the other hand, the accompanying agent participant, expressed by the prepositions s/se, is present at all levels, including the lowest, highlighting its importance for the expression of the entire event. The occurrence of the preposition v(surprisingly only in this non-vocalised form) expresses the overall spatial and temporal context of the event, e.g. do školy jdu včtvrtek apátek, často jdu vPraze na procházku ‘Igo to school on Thursday and Friday, Ioften go on walks in Prague’. 6.4 ANALYSIS OF THE FrEQUENcY OF INDIVIDUAL FOrmS OF THE VErb JÍT The final component in describing the realisation of the movement scheme is an analy - sis of how frequent the use of the individual morphological forms of the verb jít is. Table 8 lists only those forms that were recorded in more than 100 occurrences. This analysis reveals that students implement acertain strategy when using the verb jít. The verb jít is most often used in the first person (in various tenses and moods); students prefer to use the verb jít to talk about themselves and much more rarely to refer to other people. Interestingly, the most common form of the verb jít is the infiniOPEN ACCESS SVATAVA ŠKODOVá 105 A0 495 % A1 1735 % A1+ 229 % A2 1538 % 1 do 230 46,5 do 959 55,3 do 102 44,5 do 798 51,9 2 na 187 37,8 na 663 38,2 na 95 41,5 na 614 39 3 v 62 12,5 v 308 17,8 v 32 14 v 321 20,9 4 s 25 5,1 s 246 14,2 s 229 14,9 5 k 15 3 se 155 8,9 se 166 10,8 6 k 39 2,5 7 A2+ 328 % B1 907 % B2 358 % C1 59 % 1 do 138 41,1 do 439 48, 4 do 144 40,2 na 18 30,5 2 na 128 39 na 324 35,7 na 119 33,2 do do 27,1 3 se 43 13,1 V 140 15,4 v 44 12,3 o o 8,5 4 v 31 9,5 s 122 13,5 se 43 12 s s 8,5 5 k 14 4,3 se 101 11,1 k 16 4,5 ke ke 3,4 6 s 15 4,6 k 28 3,1 z 10 2,8 7 z 24 2,7 za 7 2 Table 7:Prepositions (do = into; na = on; v= in; s/se = with; k= to; o= about; z= from). Form Absolute frequency 1 jdu 1PERS, SG, PRES, Igo 920 2 jít INF, to go 795 3šli jsme 1PERS, PL, PAST, We went 615 4šla jsem 3PERS, SG, FEM, PAST, She went 552 5šel jsem 3PERS, SG, MASC, ANIM, PAST, Iwent 458 6 půjdeme 3PERS, PL, FUT, We will go 454 7 jit INF, diacr.error, to go 298 8 půjdu 1PERS, SG, FUT Iwill go 251 9 jdeme 1PERS, PL, PRES, We go/we are going 151 10 jde 3PERS, SG, PRES, She/he/it goes/is going 129 Table 8:The 10 most common forms of the verb jít in students’ texts. tive. In the table below, the forms jít and jit must be considered as asingle form, as the latter is merely an orthographically incorrect variant of the former. The total occurrence of the infinitive form of the verb jít is therefore 1,093 times. The infinitive of the verb jít appears in sentences after modal verbs. This shows aclear strategy on the students’ part developed in order to avoid the complicated morphological and phonological changes in the verb’s conjugation. Students prefer modal verbs that are broad in meaning and whose conjugation is relatively simple; to these they then append the verb jít in the infinitive, e.g. instead of odpoledne jsem šel ‘in the afternoon, Iwent’, they use the phrase odpoledne jsem musel/chtěl jít ‘in the afternoon, Ihad to / OPEN ACCESS 106 STUDIE ZAPLIKOVANÉ LINGVISTIKY  wanted to go’. Similarly, they tend to use zítra chci jít ‘Iwant to go tomorrow’ instead of zítra půjdu ‘Iwill go tomorrow’. 7. ANALYSIS OF THE OCCURRENCES OF THE VERB JÍT AT ALL THE INDIVIDUAL LEVELS OF ACQUISITION OF CZECH ACCORDING TO THE COMMON EUROPEAN FRAMEWORK OF REFERENCE FOR LANGUAGES Section 7 offers an analysis of the uses of the verb jít at all the individual levels of the Common European Framework of Reference. The analysis includes the level A0 representing absolute beginners. In this part, some levels and sublevels will be discussed in asingle comment in cases when their respective text sets use the verb jít in identical ways. One of the most common destinations at all levels is jít na procházku ‘go for awalk’, i.e. not adestination per se, but ametonymical expression of purpose. 7.1 LEVEL A0 Unsurprisingly, in texts written by beginners, the subject participant position is exclusively filled by living people who take part in the movement described by the verb jít. There are no metaphorical uses. This level already features some of the typical destinations found on higher levels, i.e. the deictic tam, náměstí, park ‘there, square, park’ and, surprisingly often, also most ‘bridge’. Other frequent destinations are those that metonymically stand for the activities performed in the given space, i.e. not spatial destinations per se: restaurace, klub, divadlo ‘restaurant, club, theatre’. Already at this early stage of language acquisition, the texts feature virtually all of the prepositions associated with the individual participants of the motion event found at the higher levels, in similar percentages. 7.2 LEVEL A1–A2+ At levels A1 and A2 as well as their sublevels, the verb jít is primarily used to express physical movement in space. The most common subject participant is ahuman being. Other subject participants appear only rarely, in total in about 2% of all cases. These participants often include school subjects or skills (technologie, filozofie, diakritika, angličtina ‘technology, philosophy, diacritics, English’) where the verb jít is used in its modal function; students use this structure to express their skill level: matematika mi nejde, filozofie mi jde ‘I’m not good at maths, I’m good at philosophy’. Similarly, the students use the summarising sentence to (ne)jde to express the possibility or impossibility of an event happening. Interestingly, this structure starts appearing from level A1 onwards, even though we have not found it in any textbook of Czech for foreigners. At these levels, we encounter the noteworthy erroneous use of subject participants sníh, déšť, krev jde ‘snow, rain, blood goes’, caused by negative transfer from Russian. The occurrence of this error leads to the important finding that the moveOPEN ACCESS SVATAVA ŠKODOVá 107 ment of liquids that Russian can describe using the verb go does not exist in the Czech conceptualisation of movement and is not transferrable. Regarding the destination participant, the analysis once again shows that expressions of physical spaces sensu stricto are exceedingly rare in this position, again represented by park, náměstí, tam ‘park, square, there’. In other cases, the destination participants express purpose,25 e.g. jít do kina, divadla, školy, hospody, klubu, restaurace ‘go to the cinema, theatre, school, pub, club, restaurant’. It should be noted, however, that textbooks of Czech for foreigners depict this type of use as movement into aphysical space following apreposition (including an illustrative spatial diagram). However, there are also expressions of destination that are not related to physical spaces themselves, but metonymically depict the objective by selecting an object representing an activity, e.g. jít na oběd, nákup, pivo, koncert, procházku ‘go for lunch, shopping, for abeer, to aconcert, for awalk’. Here, the verb jít can be encountered for the first time in agrammatical function expressing the beginning of an event. At all the Alevels, this only happens in the phrase jít spát ‘go to sleep’, meaning that during the teaching process the students are probably not motivated to apply the same grammatical structure to other events (e.g.jít nakupovat, jít plavat, jít studovat ‘go shopping, swimming, studying’). The verb jít is often used in the infinitive following amodal verb. This may be considered as an overuse of this structure and atypical example of an avoidance strategy, i.e. an attempt to avoid complicated forms in the paradigm. Modal verbs, which are easier to learn, are used here to carry grammatical meanings; to them, the students attach autosemantic verbs that they are still in the process of learning. Specifically, in this case, they combine modal verbs with the verb jít which has aparticularly complex conjugation paradigm. The phraseological use of the verb is limited to one example: Jsem vždy hotový jít na kompromis. ‘I’m always ready (to go) for acompromise.’ In terms of prepositions, there are no new phenomena encountered at the Alevel that would not be present at A0. 7.3 LEVEL b1 At the B1 level in the corpus, the frequency of the verb jít is somewhat lower than in A2. At the levels A2/A2+, the total number of occurrences is 1,866 times which in B1 drops to about ahalf, i.e. 907 occurrences. This happens alongside abroadening of the students’ vocabulary of verbs as well as topics that they are able to write about. Manual analysis shows that the meaning of “physically walking towards areal space” continues to dominate. More non-central meanings also start to appear in the texts. Their volume and frequency, however, remain unexpectedly low. Human subject participants account for almost 100% of all occurrences. There is ahandful of abstract transfers of the movement to an inanimate entity (chodba ‘corridor’ and mráz ‘frost’); other inanimate subjects combine with modal uses of the verb jít, i.e. něco 25 Using the classification developed by Saicová Římalová (2009, 2010). OPEN ACCESS 108 STUDIE ZAPLIKOVANÉ LINGVISTIKY  (ne)jde ‘something is / is not possible’. At this level, we still encounter the erroneous application of the concept of motion to liquids, i.e. *déšť jde, *krev jde ‘rain goes, blood goes’, as well as one attribution of the movement to an incompatible animal *šnek jde ‘asnail goes’ and one attempt to use the verb jít metaphorically with an abstract entity *čas jde ‘time goes’. The list of destination participants again includes the most common ones kino, restaurace, klub ‘cinema, restaurant, club’. Metonymical transfers include jít na procházku, jít na návštěvu, jít na film ‘go for awalk, on avisit, to watch afilm’. In addition to the frequent expression of purpose jít spát, the analogous structure also appears at this level in jít tancovat, jít nakupovat ‘go dancing, go shopping’. This, however, remains relatively rare. Similarly rare is the use of the verb jít to express the abstract movement of ahuman in time by expressing astatus as the destination: jít do důchodu ‘go into pension = retire’. The same applies to the abstract movements of abstract entities: Naopak technologie se rychle mění ajde stále většími kroky dopředu. ‘On the other hand technology changes quickly and goes forward with ever greater steps.’ The B1 is the first level where we encounter explicit expressions of the starting point of movement with jít z‘go from’; this however is also quite rare, occurring in only 24 examples in all the B1 texts. The use of prepositions does not exhibit any interesting features compared to the Alevels. 7.4 LEVEL b2 At level B2, the verb jít was used 358 times. Level B2 turns out to be the most varied from the perspective of the uses of the verb jít. Human participants continue to dominate in the subject position, accounting for 94.13% of all agent participants. Manual analysis shows that the meaning of physical movement in space remains most frequent, used in all but 94 cases. From all the sentences expressing motion events, 3 indicate the starting point of the event. There are ten occurrences of the abstract meaning of commencement of an event, e.g. jít na mateřskou, jít na univerzitu ‘go on maternity leave, go to university = start studying’. The sample also contains one example of an entire situation conceptualised in abstract terms: Pojďme na naši elektronickou schránku. ‘Let’s go to our electronic mailbox.’ In five cases, the verb jít expressed the meaning of jednat se o‘concern, be about’: Jenom že spravdou musíme šetřit, když jde onaše názory. ‘We need to be careful with the truth when our opinions are on the line.’ Uses of the verb jít that express purpose are relatively common, either with asubstantive phrase (46 occurrences): jít na koktail, na drink, na koncert, na nákup, na plavání, na rande ‘go for acocktail, drink, to aconcert, shopping, swimming, on adate’, or with an infinitive: jdu spát, jdu studovat ‘I’m off to sleep, I’m off to study’. In eight cases, the verb jít was used with amodal modifier: Pomocí intonace můžeš říct víc, než to jde vruštině. ‘With intonation, you can say more than is possible in Russian.’ 7.5 LEVEL c1 At level C1, the frequency of use of the verb jít is again slightly reduced, by 0.06%, compared to B2. The verb jít appears in the texts 59 times, of which 45 of which are OPEN ACCESS SVATAVA ŠKODOVá 109 expressions of walking into aspace; only one expresses the starting point and not the destination and 14 cases express ameaning other than the act of walking. Even though human participants continue to dominate in the subject position, the percentage is lower than that of all other levels, namely 86.44%. Six occurrences express purpose as destination, e.g. jít na procházku, jít na piknik, jít na demostraci, jít na trénink, jít na ples, jít kdoktorovi ‘go for awalk, on apicnic, to ademonstration, training, to the ball, to the doctor’s’. Only one case expresses metaphorical movement: jít na univerzitu ‘go to university = start studying’. In three cases, the verb jít was used in its secondary meaning jednat se o‘concern, be about’. Two cases expressed the modal meaning dařit se ‘to be successful, to progress’: Jak ti jde studování? ‘How are your studies?’ Overall, the verb jít is used in avery narrow range of meanings at level C1. 8. CONCLUSION The aim of the current paper was to carry out an analysis of the uses of the semantic range of the verb jít as the central element of amotion event in texts written by non-native speakers of Czech. In sections 2 and 3, we first presented the grammatical and semantic delineation of the verb jít and showed the scale of its uses as well as the individual elements that we would expect to encounter in the production of nonnative speakers. Using material from the learner corpus CzeSL, we then verified the frequency of occurrences of the verb jít across the various levels of language acquisition according to the CEFR, focusing in particular on the specifics of the participants of motion events expressed by the verb jít in the subject and destination positions, the occurrence of the individual meanings of the verb jít and its grammatical functions. We also examined the occurrences of prepositions in all positions of the motion event which illustrate the involvement of participants, as well as the frequency of various morphological forms of the verb jít. Compared to the richness of meanings in use by native speakers, the verb jít in the learner corpus seems relatively poor and mostly restricted to the movement of human participants in aphysical space towards aspecific destination, usually expressed by metonymic transfer. Interestingly enough, the verb jít is frequently encountered as asyntactically auxiliary verb, i.e. one with aweakened semantic meaning that is used to encapsulate the grammatical functions of the entire predicate; this particularly applies not only to expressions of commencement / an upcoming realisation of an event, but also to modal functions. This finding is especially striking given the fact that these grammatical functions of the verb are not explicitly mentioned in textbooks. This means that they appear in the texts of non-native speakers either through transfer from other languages or through spontaneous acquisition. Another important phenomenon discovered during the analysis is the use of the verb jít in the infinitive after modal verbs. We consider this as an example of an avoidance strategy which helps students bypass the verb’s complicated formal transformations in various morphological functions. It might be worth considering whether this OPEN ACCESS 110 STUDIE ZAPLIKOVANÉ LINGVISTIKY  spontaneous strategy could be used methodically and deliberately on more subliminal levels of the teaching of Czech. The last interesting finding in this analysis of motion events is the use of the verb jít as amodal verb or averb indicating the initiation/upcoming occurrence of an event. This phenomenon could be methodologically further developed in order to teach students to express these meanings already from the early stages of acquisition without exposing them to overly complicated grammar. Students of all levels use the phrase jdu spát ‘I’m going to bed’ whose structure could be easily applied to other events: jdu pracovat, jdu sportovat, jdu jíst ‘I’m going to work, to do sports, to eat’ which would substantially expand the communication means available, especially for beginners. Despite these useful methodological findings, the overall results of the analysis of the use of the verb jít are rather frustrating from the teaching perspective. Across the entire learning corpus CzeSL, the verb is used very sporadically when compared to the richness of its uses by native speakers. It turns out that non-native speakers mainly utilise the verb’s central meaning and certain other secondary meanings that maintain the semantic components of movement. This observation is certainly not meant as acriticism of their skills in the use of Czech; instead, it points out asignificant shortcoming in the methodology of textbooks of Czech for foreigners. Being aware of this gap is, however, the first step to overcoming it by developing amore detailed methodology on how to conceptualise the verb jít for the purposes of teaching Czech for foreigners. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bartoň, T. et al. (2009). Statistiky češtiny. Praha: Nakladatelství Lidové noviny. 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Těšitelová, M. (1987). Očeštině včíslech. Praha: Academia. Zasina, A.J., & Škodová, S. (2020). Konvence avariabilita vužívání prefixů usloves pohybu nerodilými mluvčími češtiny. In M.Balowski (Ed.), Konwencja czy kreacja wjęzyku iwliteraturze czeskiej (pp. 115–129). Poznań: Wydawnictwo „Pro”. Svatava Škodová | Institute of Czech Studies, Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague <[email protected]> OPEN ACCESS