From flying Sancho to swooning Altisidora: The changing use of premodifying present participles in three English translations of Cervantes’ Don Quijote
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Hendrik De Smet
Abstract
Over the Modern period, English has come to make increasing use of situation-oriented present participles to structure narrative texts. Situation-oriented participles are premodifying participles that function as compressed subordinate clauses, relating one event to another. For example, in He hauled the sobbing boy to his feet (British National Corpus, BNC), the event denoted by the participle (sobbing) is construed as backgrounded and approximately simultaneous to the event of the higher clause (hauled). Because situation-oriented participles are used in a specifically clause-like way, their rise can be thought of as a departure from the adjectival character of premodifying participles, and by that token as an instance of functional verbalization. In this chapter, the rise of situation- oriented participles is addressed through a close analysis of their use in three successive English translations of Cervantes’ Don Quijote, roughly representative of Early Modern English, Late Modern English and Present-day English. As in untranslated fiction, the use of situation-oriented participles increases over the three translations. Closer quantitative and qualitative analysis reveals that situation-oriented participles are employed with growing freedom in the successive translations. Situation-oriented participles are increasingly used in contexts where the Spanish original offers a different construal of event relations. Moreover, there are indications that the simultaneity requirement, to which their use is subject, is loosened in Present-day English. This confirms that over time situation-oriented participles became more prominent as a grammatical resource available to English authors and translators.
Abstract
Over the Modern period, English has come to make increasing use of situation-oriented present participles to structure narrative texts. Situation-oriented participles are premodifying participles that function as compressed subordinate clauses, relating one event to another. For example, in He hauled the sobbing boy to his feet (British National Corpus, BNC), the event denoted by the participle (sobbing) is construed as backgrounded and approximately simultaneous to the event of the higher clause (hauled). Because situation-oriented participles are used in a specifically clause-like way, their rise can be thought of as a departure from the adjectival character of premodifying participles, and by that token as an instance of functional verbalization. In this chapter, the rise of situation- oriented participles is addressed through a close analysis of their use in three successive English translations of Cervantes’ Don Quijote, roughly representative of Early Modern English, Late Modern English and Present-day English. As in untranslated fiction, the use of situation-oriented participles increases over the three translations. Closer quantitative and qualitative analysis reveals that situation-oriented participles are employed with growing freedom in the successive translations. Situation-oriented participles are increasingly used in contexts where the Spanish original offers a different construal of event relations. Moreover, there are indications that the simultaneity requirement, to which their use is subject, is loosened in Present-day English. This confirms that over time situation-oriented participles became more prominent as a grammatical resource available to English authors and translators.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Contents VII
- Subordination, or the permanent allure of the “adjacent possible” 1
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Part I: Diachronic perspectives on subordination
- From flying Sancho to swooning Altisidora: The changing use of premodifying present participles in three English translations of Cervantes’ Don Quijote 25
- Because science! Notes on a variable conjunction 43
- That-clauses as complements of verbs or nouns 61
- Semantic roles as a factor affecting complement choice: a case study with data from COHA 85
- Expanding the type you can’t help laughing 103
- -Ing clauses in spoken English: structure, usage and recent change 129
- Resourceful ways of recruiting members: The origin and development of Mental zero-Secondary Predicate Constructions 155
- The rise of long catenative constructions in Modern English: new sub-schemas and new stylistic options 185
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Part II: Subordination in Present-day Englishes
- Catenative get in World Englishes 211
- Adverbial subordination across variety types: A synchronic analysis of the syntax and semantics of since- and while-clauses in ENL, ESL, and EFL 235
- Whatever the specific circumstances, …: A Construction Grammar perspective of wh-ever clauses in English 263
- A sociolinguistic study of relativizers in spoken Philippines English 285
- Subject index 309
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Contents VII
- Subordination, or the permanent allure of the “adjacent possible” 1
-
Part I: Diachronic perspectives on subordination
- From flying Sancho to swooning Altisidora: The changing use of premodifying present participles in three English translations of Cervantes’ Don Quijote 25
- Because science! Notes on a variable conjunction 43
- That-clauses as complements of verbs or nouns 61
- Semantic roles as a factor affecting complement choice: a case study with data from COHA 85
- Expanding the type you can’t help laughing 103
- -Ing clauses in spoken English: structure, usage and recent change 129
- Resourceful ways of recruiting members: The origin and development of Mental zero-Secondary Predicate Constructions 155
- The rise of long catenative constructions in Modern English: new sub-schemas and new stylistic options 185
-
Part II: Subordination in Present-day Englishes
- Catenative get in World Englishes 211
- Adverbial subordination across variety types: A synchronic analysis of the syntax and semantics of since- and while-clauses in ENL, ESL, and EFL 235
- Whatever the specific circumstances, …: A Construction Grammar perspective of wh-ever clauses in English 263
- A sociolinguistic study of relativizers in spoken Philippines English 285
- Subject index 309
