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Chapter 17. Verbless sentences in L’Étranger

A French – Russian – English contrastive study
  • Antonina Bondarenko and Agnès Celle
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The Expression of Tense, Aspect, Modality and Evidentiality in Albert Camus’s <i>L'Étranger</i> and Its Translations / <i>L'Étranger</i> de Camus et ses traductions : questions de temps, d'aspect, de modalité et d'évidentialité (TAME)
This chapter is in the book The Expression of Tense, Aspect, Modality and Evidentiality in Albert Camus’s <i>L'Étranger</i> and Its Translations / <i>L'Étranger</i> de Camus et ses traductions : questions de temps, d'aspect, de modalité et d'évidentialité (TAME)

Abstract

What is aspectual meaning without a verb? Focusing on sentences in which the typical marker of aspectual meaning – the verb constellation – is absent, we use translations to explore the aspectual meaning pragmatically implicated by verbless sentences. Retrieved automatically, they were analyzed from a monolingual, parallel-text and third-language perspective. Semantic annotation for situation and viewpoint aspect showed that while states are an important correlate, verbless sentences are also found in contexts that call for the use of dynamic situations. English verbless sentences tend to implicate the French present simple and require an indexical relation to the situation of utterance. In spite of its high frequency in the novel, the French passé composé is excluded from the conversational implicature of Russian and English verbless sentences.

Abstract

What is aspectual meaning without a verb? Focusing on sentences in which the typical marker of aspectual meaning – the verb constellation – is absent, we use translations to explore the aspectual meaning pragmatically implicated by verbless sentences. Retrieved automatically, they were analyzed from a monolingual, parallel-text and third-language perspective. Semantic annotation for situation and viewpoint aspect showed that while states are an important correlate, verbless sentences are also found in contexts that call for the use of dynamic situations. English verbless sentences tend to implicate the French present simple and require an indexical relation to the situation of utterance. In spite of its high frequency in the novel, the French passé composé is excluded from the conversational implicature of Russian and English verbless sentences.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface ix
  4. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  5. Part I. Perfect tenses and the French Passé Composé
  6. Chapter 2. De la sémantique des temps verbaux à la traductologie 11
  7. Chapter 3. Passé composé et insularisation phrastique dans L’Étranger d’A. Camus 39
  8. Chapter 4. Peut-on traduire L’Étranger de Camus en latin ? 59
  9. Chapter 5. À propos d’un conflit aspectuo-temporel engendré par certains usages du passé composé 75
  10. Chapter 6. Le passé composé, temps de base dans L’Étranger d’Albert Camus 95
  11. Part II. Neutral and imperfective tenses-aspects
  12. Chapter 7. Temporal prominence demotion in updating imparfait uses in L’Étranger 117
  13. Chapter 8. The PC and Imparfait in German and Swedish (re)‍translations of L’Étranger 143
  14. Chapter 9. Imperfectivity in L’Étranger in French, English, Breton 161
  15. Part III. Non Indo-European languages
  16. Chapter 10. L’emploi des temps du passé dans la traduction du roman L’Étranger en japonais 187
  17. Chapter 11. Les temps verbaux et l’ancrage énonciatif en français et en estonien 203
  18. Chapter 12. French tense challenged by Finnish aspects 221
  19. Chapter 13. Traduction vietnamienne des passés composés dans L’Étranger de Camus 245
  20. Part IV. Modality and evidentiality issues
  21. Chapter 14. Les modalités dans L’Étranger et l’expression de l’absurde 267
  22. Chapter 15. Modal verbs in L’Étranger and its Romance translations 283
  23. Chapter 16. Deixis personnelle et deixis spatiale 303
  24. Part V. Perspectives from stylistic and translation studies
  25. Chapter 17. Verbless sentences in L’Étranger 325
  26. Chapter 18. Traduire les discordances temporelles dans L’Étranger 353
  27. Chapter 19. The rationalisation of time references in the Italian translations of L’Étranger 369
  28. Name index 381
  29. Subject index 385
https://doi.org/10.1075/lis.35.17bon

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface ix
  4. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  5. Part I. Perfect tenses and the French Passé Composé
  6. Chapter 2. De la sémantique des temps verbaux à la traductologie 11
  7. Chapter 3. Passé composé et insularisation phrastique dans L’Étranger d’A. Camus 39
  8. Chapter 4. Peut-on traduire L’Étranger de Camus en latin ? 59
  9. Chapter 5. À propos d’un conflit aspectuo-temporel engendré par certains usages du passé composé 75
  10. Chapter 6. Le passé composé, temps de base dans L’Étranger d’Albert Camus 95
  11. Part II. Neutral and imperfective tenses-aspects
  12. Chapter 7. Temporal prominence demotion in updating imparfait uses in L’Étranger 117
  13. Chapter 8. The PC and Imparfait in German and Swedish (re)‍translations of L’Étranger 143
  14. Chapter 9. Imperfectivity in L’Étranger in French, English, Breton 161
  15. Part III. Non Indo-European languages
  16. Chapter 10. L’emploi des temps du passé dans la traduction du roman L’Étranger en japonais 187
  17. Chapter 11. Les temps verbaux et l’ancrage énonciatif en français et en estonien 203
  18. Chapter 12. French tense challenged by Finnish aspects 221
  19. Chapter 13. Traduction vietnamienne des passés composés dans L’Étranger de Camus 245
  20. Part IV. Modality and evidentiality issues
  21. Chapter 14. Les modalités dans L’Étranger et l’expression de l’absurde 267
  22. Chapter 15. Modal verbs in L’Étranger and its Romance translations 283
  23. Chapter 16. Deixis personnelle et deixis spatiale 303
  24. Part V. Perspectives from stylistic and translation studies
  25. Chapter 17. Verbless sentences in L’Étranger 325
  26. Chapter 18. Traduire les discordances temporelles dans L’Étranger 353
  27. Chapter 19. The rationalisation of time references in the Italian translations of L’Étranger 369
  28. Name index 381
  29. Subject index 385
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