Protetické v ve Smolné knize velkobítešské (1556–1636)

The article deals with the prothetic v in a manuscript book of testimonies of people interrogated under torture under Czech Early Modern criminal law. The records of testimonies, being legal documents, had to be as faithful as possible and are thus fairly close to the then spoken Czech, even to a degree not found anywhere else in the period production, although the influence of scribes must be also carefully considered. The German scribe, for example, who did not have a firm grasp of Czech and its orthography, wrote down the prothesis in almost all possible instances, hence testifying to its systemic character in the local dialect. The books of testimonies are free from several limitations of typographical usage of Early Modern prints and also represent highly interesting material from the sociolinguistic point of view. The Velka Biteš juridical district included the Naměšť region where the future language model of prestigious Czech – the Kralice Bible – would appear in the period examined. The article provides a detailed analysis of the usage of prothesis considering several parameters such as the role of the individual scribes and the chronology, a comparison of proper nouns with the remaining vocabulary, a comparison of classes within the proper nouns, parts of speech and word formation analysis, the hiatus position, speeches of males and females recorded by a single scribe and a comparison with selected period prints and manuscripts.