Translating verbal tenses between tensed and tenseless languages
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Cristina Grisot
Abstract
In this chapter, we investigate how verbal tenses are translated into a tenseless language (Chinese) and whether the translation of temporal information from a tenseless language into tensed languages (English and French) is influenced by the formal structure of the source language. The results of our corpus analysis show that English and French verbal tenses like the Present Perfect and Imparfait are not systematically translated into Mandarin using an aspectual marker. We find that present-time French and English verbal tenses are most often translated into Mandarin using non-marked VPs, past-time verbal tenses using aspectual, temporal markers and linguistically non-marked VPs, and future-time verbal tenses using temporal markers. These patterns also apply for the translation of Mandarin VPs into French and English.
Abstract
In this chapter, we investigate how verbal tenses are translated into a tenseless language (Chinese) and whether the translation of temporal information from a tenseless language into tensed languages (English and French) is influenced by the formal structure of the source language. The results of our corpus analysis show that English and French verbal tenses like the Present Perfect and Imparfait are not systematically translated into Mandarin using an aspectual marker. We find that present-time French and English verbal tenses are most often translated into Mandarin using non-marked VPs, past-time verbal tenses using aspectual, temporal markers and linguistically non-marked VPs, and future-time verbal tenses using temporal markers. These patterns also apply for the translation of Mandarin VPs into French and English.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Time in languages, languages in time 1
- Slavery and Britain in the 19th century 9
- Diachronic change in the ordering of kinship binomials 39
- Tracing processes in auxiliarization 67
- Translating verbal tenses between tensed and tenseless languages 95
- From language to language, from time to time 129
- Just a moment 155
- Then and now in English and French 181
- Time adverbials in English and Norwegian news discourse 201
- Minutes of action! A contrastive analysis of time expressions in English and Norwegian football match reports 229
- Cross-disciplinary and cross-linguistic uses of tensed verb phrases in the methods sections of master’s theses 255
- The expression of time in English and Czech children’s literature 283
- Index 305
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Time in languages, languages in time 1
- Slavery and Britain in the 19th century 9
- Diachronic change in the ordering of kinship binomials 39
- Tracing processes in auxiliarization 67
- Translating verbal tenses between tensed and tenseless languages 95
- From language to language, from time to time 129
- Just a moment 155
- Then and now in English and French 181
- Time adverbials in English and Norwegian news discourse 201
- Minutes of action! A contrastive analysis of time expressions in English and Norwegian football match reports 229
- Cross-disciplinary and cross-linguistic uses of tensed verb phrases in the methods sections of master’s theses 255
- The expression of time in English and Czech children’s literature 283
- Index 305
