3 part question

Discussion in 'Grammar & Pronunciation' started by Calvario, Jun 20, 2007.

  1. Calvario

    Calvario Well-Known Member

    I have a few questions about the following sentence.

    Ano. očekáváme jiného pana smithe, známého pašeráka drog a mí kolegové na celnici trošku podezřívají vaše těžká.

    Yes, we are waiting for another Mr. Smith, a famous drug smuggler and my fellow customs officers are a bit suspicious of your bag.

    First question: Why does Smith have an E at the end? Why not an A?

    Second: Is "drog" the plural genitive of droga, acting the part of an
    adjective here " smuggler of drugs"?

    Third: How do we get trošku here? Is it a form of trochu? I
    didn't see it in my dictionary-probably outdated. The
    dictionary that is.

    Thanks,
    Calvario
     
  2. Alexx

    Alexx Well-Known Member

     
  3. eso

    eso Well-Known Member

    Isn't pán right pattern for Smith?
     
  4. Alexx

    Alexx Well-Known Member

    cases 1 - 7:

    muž, muže, muži (or mužovi), muže, muži!, muži (or mužovi), mužem

    pán, pána, pánovi, pána, pane!, pánovi, pánem

    Smith, Smithe, Smithovi, Smithe, Smithi!, Smithovi, Smithem


    whoops, both fit in some cases, but I guess it is pattern "muž"

    This is probably because of foreign name, so it is not easy to determine which of these paterns it is. I wonder what will our experts say about it.
     
  5. eso

    eso Well-Known Member

    And i'm believe it's pán (at least in written form) :)
     
  6. Alexx

    Alexx Well-Known Member

    In german form of this name, Schimidt, second case is Schmidta. But for english Smith would Smitha, at least in spoken form, sounds odd.
     
  7. wer

    wer Well-Known Member

    Simply, because the speaker chose this way of declension.

    The model “muž” prevails in the plain Czech, the formal/classic style prefers the model “pán”.

    Although we have strict rules of declension of foreign names for some languages, the declension of names is always peculiar, especially of the English names.

    “Trochu” is the adverbized noun “trocha”, “trošku” is the adverbized noun “troška” which is the diminutive of “trocha”. You can even adverbize the diminutive of this diminutive:

    trocha   adverb trochu (~ a bit)
        ↓
    diminutive
        ↓

    troška   adverb trošku (~ a little bit)
        ↓
    diminutive
        ↓

    trošička adverb trošičku (~ a very little bit / a whit)
     
  8. Alexx

    Alexx Well-Known Member

  9. Sova

    Sova Well-Known Member

    As DjAvatar says, "žen" is not an adjective, but rather a noun declined in the genitive plural; however, its direct translation into English results in an adjectival prepositional phrase "of drugs" (i.e. it modifies the noun "smuggler").

    Note, one could also translate this phrase as "drug smuggler" (using the adjectival meaning of the word "drug") rather than "smuggler of drugs"; however, the second variant is a more literal translation from the original Czech.
     
  10. Karel_lerak

    Karel_lerak Well-Known Member

    One more opinion to Mr. Smith:
    The declension would depend on pronunciation. We do not have the sound "th", so we would pronounce either smit (smita) or smis (smise) and write accordingly Smitha or Smithe. 8)
     
  11. wer

    wer Well-Known Member

    Yes, you’re right it depends on the pronunciation. The form [smite] (resp. [smitě]) is unsupposable. On the other hand, both [smise] and [smisa] are common. (Poles and Slovaks use only the form “Smitha”.)

    (BTW, why do we suppose it’s an English name? It could be Danish as well. :twisted:)
     
  12. eso

    eso Well-Known Member

    Yes Calvario, which nationality is your Smith? ;) ;)
     
  13. Calvario

    Calvario Well-Known Member

    Well, I don't know for certain, sorry. Actually questions 2 and 3 were of more interest to me. So, it is correct that in #2 droga is in the gen. plural. Which makes sence when you have 2 nouns and one is playing the part of an adjective. Good info. on #3 too.

    Well, maybe well just never know about ol' Mr. Smith or smithe or smitha or whatever his name is.

    Thanks,
    Calvario
     
  14. scrimshaw

    scrimshaw Well-Known Member

    Calvario,
    I recognize the line from a dialogue. You are using one of the books I used.
    The all important question about where is Pan Smith from....
    Here's a clue...more lines from book.
    Pan Smithe je v Praze. Doma v anglii bydlí v bytě ve činžaku, ale v Praze má luxosni pokoje v hotelu.
    But then he could be a Dane living in England.
    So the mystery goes on.
     
  15. Eleshar

    Eleshar Well-Known Member

    "pašerák drog"
    "drog" is not an adjective, it is a noun in geitive. But what it is is atribute (in Czech - přívlastek), in this case indirect.
    drogový pašerák - "adjective + noun" and "direct atribute + subject/object" (depends on the position in the phrase)
    pašerák drog - "noun + noun" and "subj./obj. (same case as the former) + indirect atribute"

    morale: Never mix morpho-semantic criteria with syntactic criteria :twisted:

    ad Smith:
    As said before, depends on the pronunciation. /smis/ is "muž", /smit/ (incorrect Czech pronunciation) is "pán".
    The same for notorious "Anouilh" (French poet), which can be declined by both paradigms:
    Anouilh /anuj/
    bez Anouilhe /anuje/
    bez Anouilha /anuila/
    where both are correct because the first is more systematic and the second corresponds more to the way we treat foreign languages words (long topic).
     
  16. scrimshaw

    scrimshaw Well-Known Member

    morale: Never mix morpho-semantic criteria with syntactic criteria. :evil:

    That is excellent advice I'm sure Eleshar, but since I have no idea what it means.....I'll just have to take your word for it.

    pašerák drog....yea that's how I understood the construct in the dialogue....smuggler of drugs.....the english translations do not always hold true to the czech sentence construction.
     

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