Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Amsterdam, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 217-[232]) and index.

This diploma thesis deals with an analysis of Old Czech poem Tristram and Izalda. The source of the analysed text is the Strahov manuscript dated to 1449, in edition by Zdeňka Tichá. The thesis includes a brief description of the history and origin of the analysed piece in both European and especially Czech literary context. The main focus of this text is the linguistic analysis of selected language phenomena. That comprises of phonological and morphological evolution of most grammar categories of nouns, adjectives and verbs in Czech language. With nouns and adjectives, the thesis focuses on the declination paradigm, specifically on the system of grammatical cases and the animacy of the masculine gender. With verbs, the attention is given to the analysis of the tenses, with emphasis on the simple past tenses. First and foremost, the thesis focuses on the analysis of the aorist and imperfect tense with emphasis on verbal aspect affiliation, from which these tenses are often created. A part of the work is dedicated to the preterite, the compound past tense. Where individual verbal forms are analysed, the main focus is given to the nt- and s- participles, their suffix system and also the connection to the category of verbal aspect. Many distinct examples from the analysed text are provided throughout the thesis, as well as detailed statistic data on the occurrence frequency of selected phenomena

This thesis discusses the comic discourse in Laurence Sterne's novel The life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. It shows the way in which the theories of the comic of Henri Bergson and Sigmund Freud are applied in this novel. In Tristram Shandy, the principles of the comic of Bergson and Freud do not function in their usual manner; they are fulfilled by the structure and the process of narration. The comic in this novel is also enhanced by the fact that aspects of narration that are usually static and unchanging throughout a novel (such as the nature of the narrator) gained dynamism in Tristram Shandy. This dynamism offers a space for the structural comic to origin. The comic of Tristram Shandy also draws from the principle of association. This novel inspired later theories of humour and the comic in general.