Volumen 65 (2014): Edición 2 (December 2014)

The paper analyzes the criteria for the determination of the syllabic boundary in consonant clusters in the intersonantic position of three-syllable words (material base is standard Slovak), while the applicability and „weight” of individual criteria for the determination of syllable boundaries, as well as their „cooperative” and „contradicting” character, are manifested. The interpretative procedure is realized on the abstract level of phonic units, on which three groups of nonsonants (resonant, noise occlusives and noise fricatives) are determined. As a result, a limited number of model combinations of examined consonant (nonsonant) clusters has arisen. This kind of analysis proceeds from a closer interconnection between differentiated levels of individual and universal in phonic units according to J. Sabol’s synthetic phonological theory.

Literature has pointed out to the existence of two kinds of aspectual prefixes in Slavic languages - external or superlexical and internal or lexical - which differ in the ability to mark telicity and alter argument structure. The study discusses the two kinds of prefixes in Slovak on the basis of scalarity underlying telicity. External prefixes are nonscalar, they express an event is bounded in time but not inherently delimited. They are ±telic and they do not alter argument structure. In contrast, internal prefixes are scalar, because they refer to a scale that measures the event. They are +telic because they denote a boundary on the scale. They can alter argument structure because the event participant measured by a scale must be obligatorily realized as subject or direct object. There are three cases of argument structure alternation: 1. an optionally transitive verb becomes an obligatorily transitive prefixed verb, 2. an intransitive verb becomes an obligatorily transitive prefixed verb with unselected direct object, 3. an intransitive verb becomes an obligatorily reflexive prefixed verb with unselected reflexive marker sa, which I consider a kind of direct object.

The paper gives a basic characteristic of the methodology and results of quantitative research of the development of noun case homonymy in Slovak and the East Slavonic languages in the comparison with the late Proto-Slavic ground state. The methodology is based on findings in the field of cognitive psychology, according to which a higher degree of ambiguity is linked with a higher level of the interpretative complexity. The paper also includes a proposal of the interpretation of findings of this research, which reveal the operation of principles of positive and negative feedback in the development of the above-mentioned languages morphology. The interpretation is based on the basic assumptions of the natural selection theory, in accordance to which the author proposes to explain the identified trends in the quasi-teleological spirit. The text is inspired by Jakobson's understanding of markedness and language teleonomy.

The article deals with the Hindi language and its use as a language for official purposes from the late Middle Ages until its implementation in the Constitution of India in the year 1949. It reveals various ideas for promoting Hindi as a national (official) language of India. The main focus is on the thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi on Hindi as the lingua franca of India and its role in the replacement of English. Further it describes the process and struggle of its implementation as the official language in the Constituent Assembly of India and concludes with the compromise made by this Assembly.