“Buoyantly, nippily, testily” – Remarks on translating manner adverbs into Romanian

2.1 Manner adverbs and their interpretations

The clausal reading, however, is not completely unexpected. There are diachronic reasons assumed in Schäfer (2002, 318) for certain pure manner adverbs to acquire a clausal interpretation as well. Swan (1988a 1988b, 1997) argues that sentence adverbs (SAs) have evolved from intensifier/manner adverbs to degree and later into SAs. Swan (1988a, 1988b) argues that, while some truth intensifiers appear to be full-fledged SAs even in Old English, evaluatives can hardly be called anything but “embryo SA.” So, although these adverbs are very rare both in Old English and Middle English and have developed as a true and relatively large class only in Modern English, we do not mean to say that Old English does not have SAs. However, Protopopescu (2012, 166) claims that SAs must have already existed in older stages of the language, evolving from already existing manner adverbs and acquiring pragmatic functions. This line of reasoning actually supports findings by Schäfer (2002, 318) and Ernst (2002) who come up with a template for manner adverbs with respect to their semantic interpretation correlated with their syntactic positions.

Schäfer (2002, 317) notices that, at least for German, the two readings of the manner adverb quietly would be expressed by two different adverbs, still for the clausal and leise for the manner variant. Alternatively, Romanian prefers a paraphrase at best for the clausal reading, i.e. în tăcere ‘in silence silently’ and an adverb încet ‘quietly’ for the manner reading as in (2c) and (2d).

Therefore, manner adverbs trigger a different interpretation in correlation with their syntactic position in the sentence (cf. Schäfer 2002, 318, Ernst 2002, Protopopescu 2012, 166, inter alia). Additionally, it appears that, at least for German and Romanian, they may also be expressed by means of different adverbs or adverbial-like phrases. These differences are captured in Table 1.

Schäfer (2004a) puts forward a more refined classification within the manner adverb class. He argues contra Ernst (2002) that there needs to be some sort of distinction between what he calls core pure manner adverbs such as loudly or tightly and other pure manner adverbs, such as quickly , slowly or quietly , whose meanings can be extended metaphorically and thus yield a different reading. Interestingly, Schäfer (2004a) further argues that synonyms and antonyms of quickly cannot be expected to have the same possibilities as far as their interpretation is concerned. This hypothesis is borne out by data from English, where the adverb fast , close in meaning to quickly , lacks the metaphorical extension of temporal (aspectual) reading and cannot occur in pre-verbal position, while quickly obviously can.

Therefore, in the spirit of Schäfer (2004a and 2004b), manner adverbs can be further subdivided into pure manner adverbs and core pure manner adverbs, where they develop two reading with respect to the syntactic position in which they are generated, as in Table 2 and examples (4) and (5).

As was the case with German noticed by Schäfer (2004a), Romanian shows a similar behaviour, in that in the clausal interpretation, it prefers a PP paraphrase (în tăcere ‘in silence’), whereas in the VP/manner reading, it prefers a manner adverb derived from the corresponding adjective in its masculine form (încet, ‘quietly’).

Additionally, Katz (2008) proposes that, when combined with state verbs, manner adverbs have a metaphoric, non-literal meaning:

In brief, manner modifiers cannot play their normal event-predicational role when they modify state verbs, so they must be reinterpreted. (Katz 2008, 238)

He also claims that:

the use of manner adverbs when combined with state verbs is, in a sense, metaphorical. There is no passionate state, but rather there are passionate events that are closely related to certain states, and we can use adverbials to call up these passionate events, even when talking about states. (Katz 2008, 246)

We intend to check all these properties of manner adverbs against the corpus under discussion.

2.2 Manner adverbs and manner of saying verbs (MoSvs)

Because the data we discuss in this article are taken from literary texts with a lot of dialogue, it is interesting to also have a look at the interaction between MoSvs and manner adverbs. We do not intend at this point to investigate the more refined analysis of MoS with the impressive variety of MoS verbs in both English and Romanian, as discussed in Stoica (2021), although their syntactic behaviour shows a wide range of differences among them. The reason for it is that the contexts that are part of our corpus are mostly made up of instances of the verb say.

The interesting part is that, although the preferred MoSv is say, it is accompanied by a plethora of manner adverbs as can be seen in (6).

3.1 Analysis of the data

In this section, we intend to check the predictions made in the beginning with respect to the strategies employed in the translation of manner adverbs in the corpus. Our hypothesis is that due to the partly adverbial status of Romanian, there will be fewer instances of equivalence and more instances of paraphrase by means of a PP.

We will start our analysis, however, with instances of equivalence, because as announced, this is amongst the least expected strategies for translating adverbs. For reasons of space, we are not going to provide back translations for any of the examples.

In this particular case, the strategy used is equivalence, and we can see that there is a literal/semantic match between abruptly and brusc .

This is a longer excerpt with four instances of adverbs. Here, abruptly and visibly are not used as manner adverbs but as intensifiers, modifying other adjectives. The strategy adopted in the TT is that of equivalence, although in the case of visibly shaken – “vizibil zguduit,” the Romanian version is awkward because we would expect a phrase of the type ADV + de (preposition) + ADJ (vizibil de zguduit, “visibly shaken”). The alternative without the preposition is possible in Romanian, but less commonly used. To better understand why this is a problem, let us consider a similar set of examples:

So, while (8c) is grammatically incorrect, (8d) is the only accepted version. The context is similar to what we have in (8a), yet, unlike the translator’s version (8c) is not acceptable in Romanian. So, the ADV + de ‘of’ (preposition) + ADJ is clearly the preferred structure in this case.

The other two adverbs in the excerpt in (8a) are manner adverbs used in a construction with MoSv. The translator opts again for equivalence, the problem being the verb to start, in start violently, which is rendered as a zvâcni (‘to twitch’). Because it is used in front of a dialogue, and it shows inception of an activity (speaking in this case), a better equivalent for this verb would have been a izbucni (‘to burst out’). The other instance of an MoSv is ask combined with the adverb suspiciously. In this case, the TT uses the manner adverb correctly with the right MoSv in Romanian.

In this case, the pure manner adverb appears in a context with ellipsis, but this is probably why it does not pose problems for translation as the TT provides an appropriate equivalent.

Another example of equivalence in a structure with an MoSv is the one in (10). The adverb in this case is ambiguous between a subject-oriented interpretation because the reading could be that “I was sympathetic in asking” and a manner interpretation “I asked in a sympathetic manner.”

In the following examples, we discuss instances of paraphrase by means of PP structures. This is the preferred strategy for Romanian, as stated in our predictions.

This first example under analysis displays instances of manner adverbs that occur in similar structures with MoSvs.

Interestingly, the first adverb is translated with a PP paraphrase, while the second adverb, “a little distantly ,” is translated with equivalence. “ Devoutly ” is paraphrased with a PP but the whole thing is also overtranslated “ cu evlavie în voce ” (‘with piety in the voice’). We could speculate as to why this overtranslation occurs as a case of avoiding the constant repetition of the verb “say.”

In (9b), the translator opted for equivalence of the pure manner adverb vividly, probably because of the ellipsis. However, in (12b), the TT goes for a PP paraphrase (cu atâta limpezime – ‘with so much clarity’), although a version with equivalence, atât de limpede, “so clearly,” would have been just as good. The fact that the two structures are interchangeable, and more often than not the PP paraphrase is the preferred alternative, is due to the partly adverbial status of Romanian.

That the PP paraphrase and the equivalence strategies are equally valid and the PP structure is interchangeable with the adverb equivalent is supported in (13b), where we have an asyndetic coordination, so the elements under coordination are of the same rank, yet the TT version coordinates a paraphrase + substitution in the first conjunct, surprinzător de țanțoș (‘surprisingly proudly’) with an equivalent in the second conjunct, lejer ‘easily. The structure employed in the first conjunct is quite interesting because it combines a paraphrase with equivalence and substitution. Surprinzător “surprisingly/amazingly” is in fact an adverb, but we cannot argue that this is entirely equivalence because the verb perk up is somehow substituted with a less specialised verb, a se ridica ‘to stand up,’ and to compensate for the richer meaning associated with the phrasal verb perk up, i.e. “to rise or cause to rise briskly,” the translator opted for a substitution to be added to the adverb. Thus, I perked up amazingly becomes mi-am ridicat surprinzător de țanțoș capul ‘I raised my head surprisingly proudly.’ The manner adverb amazingly from the ST is used in the TT as an intensifier for another adverb țanțoș ‘proudly,’ which now substitutes/compensates for the verb “perk up.”

In (14b) and (14d), the TT chooses the PP paraphrase again, buoyantly = cu optimism, ‘with optimism’ and the second instance of buoyantly being rendered with intensification and a PP paraphrase, “plin de optimism,” ‘full of optimism.’ Both instances of buoyantly are in the manner reading of the verb, which might explain the preference for the PP paraphrase.

The adverb in (15a) is used with its manner reading, so the TT opts again for a PP paraphrase, cu nădejde ‘with strength,’ which is a rough equivalent for the meaning of sedulously = ‘diligently, persistently.’

The adverb in (16a) is also used in its pure manner interpretation. Moreover, this is a case where we also have a degree of comparison of inferiority, less nippily. The TT in (16b) correctly rendered the degree of comparison but still uses a PP paraphrase cu mai puțină agilitate ‘with less agility,’ confirming the tendency of a PP paraphrase for the manner reading.

The following set of examples is dedicated to another translation strategy, substitution. In the case of manner adverbs, substitution is achieved by replacing the adverb in the ST by an adjective in the TT.

(17a) is an instance of a manner adverb combined with an MoSv. The problem here is that the TT somehow misses or undertranslates the meaning of the adverb. Testily means ‘bitterly, fiercely, furiously,’ and the TT substitutes the manner adverb by an adjective in its feminine form morocănoasă meaning ‘grumpy’ in (17b). Something similar happens in the following example.

(18a) would be almost a case of equivalence if it were not for the fact that the manner adverb resignedly is substituted again with a corresponding feminine adjective, resemnată, ‘resigned.’

The structure in (19a) is not that of a manner adverb proper. Here, the adverb markedly is used as a modifier for the adjective feverish.

What is interesting, however, is the fact that in (17b) it is completely substituted by means of a verb, a marca, ‘to mark,’ and the adjective it modified in the ST is substituted by a noun to which the Romanian translator feels the need of adding the adjective pronunțată, ‘accentuated.’ This, in turn, leads to an instance of overtranslation. So, the adverb markedly is substituted by means of a verb and its meaning is recaptured by the addition of the adjective modifying the noun substituting the adjective in the ST.

The last example I would like to discuss involves several instances of mistranslation in the TT, amongst which the most interesting instance of mistranslation is that of the adverb rollickingly .

The whole excerpt is full of mistranslations: out of pawn, bellow, rollickingly, and in the pink are all mistranslated to various degrees. We are not going to detail the mistranslations of out of pawn and in the pink because we are not interested in the mistranslation of idiomatic phrases. The mistranslations of bellow, ‘shout angrily in a loud, deep voice,’ which is an MoSv and which combines with the manner adverb rollickingly are, however, of interest to the present analysis. Both are mistranslated to various degrees. The MoSv is completely botched because the TT interprets it as s-a înclinat ‘he took a bow,’ thus missing the entire manner of speaking structure. The manner adverb rollickingly, meaning ‘cheerfully and usually noisily’ or ‘boisterously’ is mistranslated with a PP paraphrase plin de exuberanță, ‘full of exuberance,’ which in itself is not completely wrong with respect to the issue of the MoSv. A more appropriate rendering of this constituent would have been a tunat cu veselie, ‘he thundered joyfully,’ where we would compensate for the richer meaning of rollickingly with the verb a tuna, ‘to thunder.’

From a statistics point of view, out of the 210 adverbs identified in the novel, 115 are instances of manner adverbs (Table 3). Some of them are used both as pure manner and with clausal readings in the sense of Schäfer (2002, 2004a, 2004b), Ernst (2002), and Protopopescu (2012).

As predicted at the beginning, equivalence and PP paraphrase were the preferred translation strategies, with PP paraphrase slightly higher as a preference, with 42 instances versus 33 for equivalence. Substitution by means of adjectives was quite favoured with 23 instances. We also found six cases of omission of the adverb, mostly with MoSvs, five cases of overtranslation, and six cases of mistranslation.