English copular be in the progressive: adjective complements, meaning and Czech counterparts

Clauses, where copular be occurs in the progressive, express an occurrence or a certain situation rather than a permanent state. (Matthews, 2014: 144) Each adjective that would occur in combination with such an aspect of be can also occur with its simple form, but not vice versa. Clauses in which the adjective is used with the progressive have narrower meaning. (ibid., 146) This thesis explores the predicative constructions with be in the progressive complemented by an adjective. It examines which adjectives tend to occur in such a construction, how often and by which intensifiers or other adverbials they are modified, and what other elements in the text suggest the construction is used as describing momentary behaviour. An integral part of the thesis describes how these text elements are translated into Czech and which ways does the Czech use to translate the construction as a whole. One hundred examples of the use of the construction in English original fiction and their Czech equivalents were excerpted from the parallel corpus InterCorp. The thesis also describes how often the predicate contains more than one adjective a how it is reflected in Czech. Further it examines which other constituents in the sentence suggest that the construction describes momentary behaviour in a certain situation and..