This diploma thesis compares the Spanish verb system with the Czech one in terms of expressing temporal relations. We use the InterCorp parallel synchronic corpus to examine the Spanish tenses of presente, pretérito imperfecto, pretérito perfecto simple, futuro simple, condicional simple, pretérito perfecto compuesto, pretérito pluscuamperfecto, pretérito anterior, futuro compuesto a condicional compuesto in the indicative mode and also the infinitive verb forms of infinitivo simple, infinitivo compuesto, gerundio simple a gerundio compuesto. We look for the Czech equivalents to the complex temporal meanings of the Spanish verb.

Nous avons argumenté, dans cette thèse, en faveur de l’idée selon laquelle l’anglais et l’arabe, deux langues très différentes, possèdent, l’une et l’autre, un système temporel et aspectuel. Ce point de vue a nécessité l’étude d’autres aspects des deux langues. C’est pour cela que nous ne nous sommes pas limitée à étudier uniquement les deux formes perfective (FP) et imperfective (FI) en arabe et les formes équivalentes en anglais. Nous avons également traité, pour les deux langues, la forme participiale, le système négatif, les adverbes temporels, le mode, et la modalité. Nous avons conclu que le temps et l’Aktionsart restent invariables d’une langue à l’autre et que seul l’aspect grammatical varie selon les langues. De fait, l’aspect morphologique détermine le temps en arabe. Nous avons essayé d’expliquer pourquoi Neg sélectionne FI et proposé que FI apparaît en bas de la structure et qu'elle est bloquée par Neg. FI est marquée pour [+Asp], contrairement à FP qui est [+ T]. Nous avons suggéré, finalement, que l’imperfectif en arabe fonctionne comme un infinitif, marqué pour les traits [-T] et [+Agr]. / Although English and Arabic are typologically two very different languages, we have argued in this thesis that both possess a temporal and an aspectual system. This view required the study of other aspects of these two languages. That's why we have not limited our study to only perfective (PF) and imperfective (IF) forms in Arabic and their equivalent in English. We also studied the participial form, the negative system, temporal adverbs, mood and modality. We concluded that tense and Aktionsart remain unchanged from one language to another and only the grammatical aspect varies according to the different languages. In fact, morphological aspect determines tense in Arabic. We tried to explain why Neg selects IF and proposed that IF appears at the bottom of the structure and it is blocked by Neg. IF is [+Asp], contrary to PF which is marked for [+T]. We suggested, finally, that the imperfective in Arabic functions like an infinitive with the ! features [-T] and [+Agr].

The subject of this dissertation is an analysis of the use of verbal tenses in Czech subordinate clauses. This analysis is based on the notions of relative and absolute tenses and on the distinction between content and adjunct clauses. We test the hypothesis about the connection of relative and absolute tense with the type of a subordinated clause (content and adjunct) and propose a revised version of the views presented in Czech grammars, monographs and articles based on a detailed analysis of the data from the Czech National Corpus. The syntactic and semantic criteria for the classification of dependent clauses into content and adjunct classes are studied together with the conditions for the application of relative or absolute tense. The great amount of data exploited from the Czech National Corpus support the idea that beside the expected forms of tense (relative in content clauses, absolute in adjunct clauses) there exists some shifting of the presupposed forms of verbal tenses. The explanation of these shifts is presented in this dissertation as a new contribution to the study of the interplay between Czech morphology and syntax. Key Words: subordinate content clause, relative tense, absolute tense, factual predicate, indirect speech