The Syntax of Givenness Ivona Kucerová

‘I would like to eat something at Novak’s.’
Furthermore, other lexical items that are semantically similar but at the same time can be
stressed, such as ‘some food’, do not move, as can be seen in (138).
(138) a. Chtěl bych jíst nějaké jídlo.
wanted would.1sg eat.Inf some food
‘I would like to eat some food.’
b. Chtěl bych jíst polévku.
wanted would.1sg eat.Inf soup
‘I would like to eat some soup.’
To summarize the observations so far, in Czech sentential prominence is realized only on
the last prosodic word. For an element to be deaccented it is enough to move very locally.
No cyclic movement is required (or licensed).
I have already mentioned that in certain cases it is possible to realize prominence in a
different part of the structure as well. For instance, if something is contrastively stressed,
the immediately preceding prosodic word is deaccented. Thus, we predict that a stress-less
word like ‘something’ does not need to evacuate the last position if the preceding word is
contrastively stressed. This is indeed correct, as we can see in (139).
(139) Chci JÍST něco. Ne, PÍT něco.
want-I to-eat something no to-drink something
‘I want to EAT something, not to DRINK something.’
In general, there is an optionality in whether the contrastive element is stressed in situ or
whether the contrastive element is realized as the last prosodic word, as in (140).
(140) Chci něco JÍST, ne PÍT.
want-I something to-eat no to-drink
‘I want to EAT something not to DRINK something.’
The examples in (139) and (140) are similar to the deaccented examples with hyponyms
from the previous section. Consider again the example from (124) repeated below as (141).
If the contrasted predicate ‘like’ stays in situ, as in (141-b), it gets stressed and the following
prosodic word ‘paintings’ get deaccented. On the other hand, if the object ‘paintings’
undergoes short movement, the predicate is assigned the main sentential stress.
(141) a. Já mám obrazy RÁD.
I have paintings liked
b. Já mám RÁD obrazy.
I have liked paintings
‘I really LIKE paintings.’
Notice that Czech does not seem to have the option of deaccenting an element by shifting
the main sentential stress. The only way something can become deaccented is if its immediately
preceding prosodic neighbor is independently stressed. The question that arises
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