Miroslav Kubát
2025
Genre Variation in Dependency Types: A Two-Level Genre Analysis Using the Czech National Corpus
Xinying Chen
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Miroslav Kubát
Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Dependency Linguistics (Depling, SyntaxFest 2025)
This paper examines how dependency type distributions vary across genres in the Czech National Corpus (SYN2020). Using a two-level genre classification, broad categories and fine-grained subgenres, we identify genre-sensitive syntactic patterns through relative frequency analysis. The results show that some dependency types (e.g. Atr ‘attribute’) vary consistently across genres, while others (e.g. ExD ‘part of discourse ellipsis’) show sensitivity only at the subgenre level. Our dependency-based approach extends common multidimensional analyses based on lexical-grammatical co-occurrences, directly capturing syntactic evidence and improving interpretability. Our findings also highlight the importance of fine-grained genre distinctions in revealing syntactic variation.
Syntactic Complexity in L2 Reading: A Comparison of Adapted and Original Czech Texts
Žaneta Stiborská
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Michaela Nogolová
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Xinying Chen
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Miroslav Kubát
Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Quantitative Syntax (QUASY, SyntaxFest 2025)
This corpus-based study explores the syntactic complexity of adapted Czech texts designed for learners of Czech as a second language (L2). It investigates how syntactic complexity varies according to learner proficiency levels (A2, B1, B2) as defined by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and how these adapted texts differ from their original versions. Quantitative analyses using metrics such as average sentence length (ASL), average clause length (ACL), mean dependency distance (MDD), and mean hierarchical distance (MHD) demonstrate clear systematic simplifications in adapted texts at lower proficiency levels. At A2 and B1 levels, adapted texts were found to be significantly less syntactically complex compared to their original counterparts. However, these differences diminished notably at the B2 proficiency level, indicating a gradual alignment of adapted texts with native-level syntactic complexity as learner proficiency increased. These results underscore the importance of careful syntactic calibration in creating educational materials for language learners, highlighting implications for curriculum design, instructional methodologies, and materials development. The findings offer valuable insights for language educators and textbook authors aiming to optimize reading materials to support language acquisition effectively
2021
Attributivity and Subjectivity in Contemporary Written Czech
Miroslav Kubát
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Radek Čech
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Xinying Chen
Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Quantitative Syntax (Quasy, SyntaxFest 2021)