Vokalická kvantita v rukopise T Starých letopisů českých

The text manuscript T of the Staré letopisy české (end of the 16th century) provides a rich material for the vocalic quantity research, as the vocalic quantity occurrence is often, however not systematically, marked with either a diacritical mark or a geminate here. This quantity differs both from the quantity that supposedly occurred in the Old-Czech period as well as from the quantity in the current standard Czech. It is necessary to decide whether the quantity under consideration does not reflect a certain language state in which case it needs to be considered as an error or a copyist’s quirk, or it needs to be considered as a relevant language feature reflecting on e.g. a dialect or a spoken form of a language. We compared the nonstandard quantity with the examples which are dealt with in scarce scholarly literature on this matter and in the editor’s commentaries of published works or, eventually, those which occur in other contemporary works. In some cases, the marked quantity occurred in almost all compared sources, such as lengthening of the imperative forms before -j (smilujte [have mercy!]), shortening in the suffixes of the adjectival paradigm (božského [godlike]), a short suffix in the instrumental, singular, feminine i- and ja-stem forms (s lsti, s duši [with a ruse, with a soul]), etc. The occurrence of the marked (nonstandard) quantity in various texts supports the claim that such vocalic quantity cannot be omitted and normalized due to the Old-Czech or New-Czech quantity, e.g. on the editor’s elaboration of the written piece of work.