"There were fifteen dogs here in the morning."

[Eliska566142]

I thought forms of the verb to be (být) had to be the second element in the sentence. Why not Ráno bylo tady...?

[VladaFu]

Where did you read such a rule? Certain forms are clitics and have to be at the second position, but certainly not all of them.

You could use "Ráno bylo patnáct psů tady." to stress "tady" if you wanted.

[Eliska566142]

My Czech language teacher told me that. I cannot find any really good information about Czech word order in any of the multiple books I have. It’s incredibly confusing.

[VladaFu]

But there is a problem. Czech past tense is not a simple tense, it is a compound tense from the present tense of být which forms an auxiliary verb + past participle of the verb you are conjugating. But in the third person the auxiliary verb is omitted.

And the thing that does have to be in the second position is the present tense of být, not the participle.

So when you conjugate být in the past tense you have two things,the auxiliary verb (pomocné sloveso) and the participle (příčestí). I am sure your teacher can explain more to you in person but these are two separate things and they follow different rules.

[venik212]

I am not sure why tady should be in the second position here. Rano bylo tady patnact psu was marked as being wrong.

[VladaFu]

It sounds strange. Czech has preference for certain position for adverbs, Engish has too. And also some stress patterns sound strange for Czech sentences. The second position rule onlydescribea the strongeat tendency but there are other less strict patters. It is best to listen to the speach of native speakers. Often they cannot say why it sounds unnatural some other way.

I will add yours, but remember, it is not that natural. It forces some particular stress when pronouncing it.