Exploring case forms of Czech nouns and their ranking in semantic (collocational) classes

This dissertation aims to identify and analyse the frequency distribution of mor- phological forms of nouns in contemporary Czech. The work is based on an error analysis of texts of non-native speakers revealing and describing frequent types of errors in noun inflection. Against the background of recent research in the field of second language acquisition on the one hand and the principles of communicative approaches to language teaching on the other hand nine textbooks of Czech as a foreign language are analysed for approaches to the introduction and presentation of grammatical cases, their functions and typical constructions. It is concluded that it is necessary to exemplify case functions by prototypical constructions and sufficient sample nouns for which these functions are typical. With regard to the often observed emphasis on the noun as a part of the inflectional paradigm and thus on the nominative singular as its basic form, it is eligible for textbooks and language classes to shift the focus from the dominant paradigmatic to the syntag- matic aspect of nouns and their word forms. One of the initial questions of these theses therefore is which forms of a noun are essential to the adequate (didactical- ly oriented) presentation of the noun and its use. A pilot study conducted on the data of..