Volume 57, Issue 4 -

The following article is concerned with the problem of language diversity within the framework of Radical Minimalism (Krivochen 2011, 2012). How can the diversity and variation of languages be explained? For Noam Chomsky, language faculty in the narrow sense (FLN) is nothing but an “‘organ of the body,’ along with other cognitive systems. Our analysis of human language builds on Chomsky’s (1995, 2005, 2010) minimalist assumption that the design of language is grounded in conceptual necessity. Adopting this idea, we expect to find three factors that interact to determine (I-) languages attained: genetic endowment (the topic of Universal Grammar), experience, and principles that are language- or even organism-independent.” (Chomsky 2005:1). In the present article we provide some ideas about how generative research based on Radical Minimalism can contribute on a par with the typology of languages to a more profound and sound exploration of language variation. The scope of the paper is to compare the distribution of adverbs within the three domains of the clause in Czech and German. The aim of this paper is to show that the feature-based theory of adverb licensing is not able to handle the problem of adverb order variation. Instead, a more parsimonious approach based on the Theory of Radical Minimalism will be chosen. The paper is organized as follows: After some remarks on the role of Universal Grammar, Variation and Typology in section 1, section 2 introduces the theoretical background by introducing the principles and the core of Radical Minimalism, e.g. free unbounded merge, asymmetric c-command and the restrictions within the clause structure composition. In section 3, the distribution of adverbs in the middle field is discussed for Czech and German. In the last part, we introduce the so-called Late Adjunction Hypothesis that results in similar effects to the Early Spell-Out model argued for in our paper.

This paper investigates the state of the Bosnian language on the basis of an analysis of the Australian-Bosnian weekly Bosna . The concept of a Bosnian language ( bosanski jezik ) is not new but has taken on a new lease on life with the establishment of an independent state of Bosnia and Hercegovina (BH). The general consensus is that, while there is still a common vernacular in that republic and beyond within the neoštokavian area, a new BH standard is coming into being. It still has a very flexible (“wide” or “soft”) norm and this is reflected in the enormous degree of variation in the newspaper Bosna.

The problems of language island situation have been present in humanities for over 160 years. However, in spite of the changing world, this question remains valid. The Polish community near Irkutsk – the village of Vershina is a 100-year-old language island. With the flow of time its social, economic, political and language situation has been evolving. The article is an attempt to analyse changes in Vershina’s dialect against the criteria of language island description. The present analysis is based on the results of research so far as well as on the material gathered during field research.

The establishment of the journal Word that would be the core of the dynamics of Serbian fiction during the 1990’s, was initiated by the ideological polarization at the Serbian cultural and literary scene of the time. The analysis of fiction texts, within the particular context (1994–1999), indicates that the official ideology, especially nationalism, marked one significant strand of Serbian literature in the last decade of the 20th century, the one which, from the present point of view, does not seem to be the most dynamic and vital. Although mainstream in the 1990’s, postmodern fiction exists nowadays in texts that parody postmodern poetics, thus giving a new life to the exhausted narrative paradigm. In analogy with this process, some young and female authors produce different fiction which could be named new mimetic fiction: texts are written in the confessional and realistic mode, in the form of diaries or notes, introducing various topics connected to the process of postsocialist changes.

The article shows, how Alexander Herzen, following Heine’s “Reisebilder”, develops a new poetic and journalistic style of writing, which specifically corresponds to the literary and cultural norms of the “Natural School”. At the same time, his early prose works demonstrate the difficulties which a young noble and radical intellectual had in reconciling his revolutionary mind-set with his convictions about the individual’s right to liberty and material independence. Herzen defended these convictions above all, not only against the Czarist autocracy and Western Europe’s civil society, but also against the peasants’ communal organization in a future socialist Russia.

Zusammenfassung Meerovič, Mark: Nakazanie žiliščem: Žiliščnaja politika v SSSR kak sredstvo upravlenija ljud’mi 1917–1937 gody, Moskva: Rossijskaja političeskaja ėnciklopedija (ROSSPĖN) 2008. 303 S., ISBN 978-5-8243-0988-1

Zusammenfassung Hetényi, Sz. In a Maelstrom: The history of Russian-Jewish prose (1860–1940). Budapest/New York: Central European University-Press 2008. 316 + XV S. ISBN 978-963-7326-91-2

Zusammenfassung Jakub Bart-Ċišinski (1856–1909) – Erneuerer der sorbischen Literatur/Wobnowjer serbskeje literatury: Sammelband der internationalen Konferenz zum 100. Todestag des Dichters, Bautzen und Panschwitz-Kuckau, 15.–17.10.2009. Hrsg. v. Dietrich Scholze und Franz Schön. Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag, 2011. 333 S. (Schriften des Sorbischen Instituts; 54)