A Comparative Analysis of Copular Clauses in English and Czech: Expressing 'Becoming', Lecture notes of English

Download A Comparative Analysis of Copular Clauses in English and Czech: Expressing 'Becoming' and more Lecture notes English in PDF only on Docsity! 99 2013 ACTA UNIVERSITATIS CAROLINAE PAG. 99–115 PHILOLOGICA 3 / PRAGUE STUDIES IN ENGLISH XXVI COPULAR VERBS OF THE BECOME TYPE AND THE EXPRESSION OF ‘RESULTING’ MEANING IN ENGLISH AND IN CZECH: A CONTRASTIVE CORPUS-SUPPORTED VIEW MARKÉTA MALÁ 1. Copular clauses in English and in Czech Copular clauses, i.e. clauses with a verbo-nominal predicate, are used both in English and in Czech as a means of ascribing a quality, property or value to the subject. How- ever, the repertoires of copular verbs available in the two languages differ significantly. In Czech, it is only the copula být (‘be ’ ) that is generally considered a linking verb, with some grammars also accepting its resulting counterpart stát se (‘become ’ ) as a member of the class. In English, a range of copular verbs covers the ascription of a ‘current ’ qual- ity (verbs of ‘remaining ’ , sensory perception, or epistemic modification) as well as the expression of the resultant state. We shall focus on the latter group, considering a) how the various types of ‘becoming ’ differ from one another in English, b) how these differ- ences are rendered in the Czech translation, and c) what the Czech counterparts can suggest about the ways of expressing ‘resulting ’ meaning in English. 2. The method and material The method can be described as a bidirectional corpus-supported1 approach. The analysis (see Figure 1) proceeds from a grammatical and semantic description of the English resulting copular verbs in English original texts (step one) to a study of their patterns of translation correspondence in Czech (step two). It can be assumed that for- mally distinct constructions which share the same function or meaning will also share the same translation counterparts. Based on this assumption, in the third step a typical Czech counterpart of English resulting copulas (counterpart of the type B in Figure 1) is chosen as a marker of the particular function, and its translation correspondences in English are traced (constructions a–d in Figure 1). Generally, the use of a Czech ‘marker ’ makes it possible to move from the function to the diverse forms of its expression in English (see Šaldová, 2009; Malá, 2007, 2010a, b). In the present paper, this step places the 1 The term ‘corpus-supported ’ draws on Lee (2008: 88), who uses it in reference to a way “that corpus data can be appropriated” which is both qualitative and quantitative: “the analyst comes to the task using, relying on or imposing prior linguistic intuitions or theoretical frameworks while examining the data”. 100 resulting copulas alongside other English constructions that can carry the same meaning of non-causative change. The method relies on using a parallel translation corpus as a means which “can make meanings visible through translation patterns” (Johansson, 2007: 28). According to Teubert (2001: 151), “[i]f we assume that we may find the meaning of a textual ele- ment through its paraphrase, which is also a text, then we may describe parallel corpora as repositories for such paraphrases”. The dangers of using translations for contrastive research (viz. the quality and idiosyncrasy of translation) can be reduced by the compo- sition of the corpus, by using both directions of translation, as well as by combining the translation-based approach with other methods. “[T]ranslators can be regarded as native speaker informants whose semantic judgments are reflected in the translation choices in the target texts.” (Aijmer, 2009: 65) The approach adopted in the present paper is similar to Dyvik ’ s semantic mirrors (Dyvik, 2002), i.e. a method for deriving lexical semantic information from translational data. Our focus, however, is more on the expression of ‘becoming ’ in English, using Czech as an auxiliary language, or a ‘repository ’ of translation equivalents which may serve as markers of the resulting meaning shared by a variety of English constructions. The study draws on the English-Czech bidirectional section of the multilingual par- allel translation corpus InterCorp.2 Six hundred and four copular clauses comprising central linking verbs of the become-type (become, come, fall, get, go, grow, turn) were 2 InterCorp – Český národní korpus. Ústav Českého národního korpusu FF UK, Praha. Accessed between September 2011 and February 2012. Available at http://www.korpus.cz/intercorp/. Step 1 English copular clauses English resulting copulas Step 2 Czech counterparts Step 3 English ‘resulting ’ constructions counterpart A counterpart B counterpart C counterpart D construction a construction b construction c construction d Figure 1. The methodology: a bidirectional corpus-supported approach 103 by an expression listed in the angle brackets. The percentage actually indicates to what extent the particular copula is restricted in its choice of complements (with come and go being most restricted, and the complementation of become being quite unpredictable). Table 2. Most frequent complements of resulting copular verbs Copula Copula – total number Most frequent complements (> 4%) – total numbers Most frequent complements – predictability degree become 210 <aware 10> 4.8% come 50 <alive 4, awake 2, clean 2, true 2, to a close 2, to a halt 7, to an end 9, to rest 5, to life 5, to terms 3> 82.0% fall 59 <asleep 21, silent 12, open 3, in love 19> 55.0% get 115 <drunk 12, married 7, used to 6> 21.7% go 64 <bad 3, crazy 3, mad 12, pink 3, red 7, wrong 16> 68.8% grow 50 <accustomed 5, aware 2, intimate 2, loud 3, old 4, strong 2> 36.0% turn 56 <green 5, red 3, white 4, a shade of [colour] 3> 26.8% If semantic, rather than lexical, sequences (Hunston, 2008) are considered, the pre- dictability of the semantic class of the complement may increase, as shown in the case of turn. The predictability of the subject complement of turn comprising a colour term rises to 44.6% (Table 3). The copula turn usually (in 64.0% of clauses with colour term complements) ascribes the change in colour to non-personal subjects (ex. 3). (3) The beach turned an eggshell-brown color, the ocean gray. (Irving) Pláž se zbarvila jako hnědé skořápky od vajec a oceán zešedivěl. Table 3. Colour terms as complements of the copula turn Total Complements – total numbers Predictability turn 56 <bluish-black 1, brown 2, green 5, grey 2, grey-green 1, pink 1, red 3, scarlet 1, white 4, [modifier] colour 2, a shade of [colour] 3> 44.6% Colour terms also appear among the most frequent complements of the verb go (go pink/red/purple/scarlet/pale/white). However, with go the change in colour is typical- ly ascribed to an animate subject, and is to be understood as indicative of a (negative) change in mental state (shame, anger, fear, etc.) (ex. 4). As the other frequent comple- ments of go suggest, the verb displays a general semantic preference for adjectives (such 104 as mad, crazy, bad, wrong) which are “typically used to describe a change towards some undesirable state”. (Biber et al., 1999: 445) (4) Mrs Welch began to go red again. (Amis) Paní Welchová opět začala rudnout. The complements of come appear the most predictable of all the copulas in the become- group. Quirk et al. (1985: 1174) note that [c]ome is very restricted as a copular verb, but it makes an interesting con- trast with go […]. The association of go with deterioration (go rotten, etc.) is complemented by the association of come with improvement in come true, etc. These associations may be connected with the positive and neg- ative direction (from the speaker ’ s viewpoint) of come and go as verbs of motion. This applies to the dominant adjectival complements of come: <alive 4, awake 2, clean 2, true 2>. The range of highly predictable complements of come, however, is broader, also comprising prepositional phrases <to a close 2, to a halt 7, to an end 9, to rest 5, to life 5, to terms 3>.6 With prepositional phrase complements, come typically expresses the final, terminal stage of a process or event (ex. 5). For come, the lexical and semantic predictability, therefore, is further restricted by the form of the complement (Table 4). Table 4. Most frequent complements of the copula come Total Most frequent complements – total numbers Predictability come + AdjP 12 <alive 4, awake 2, clean 2, true 2> 83.3% come + PrepP 37 <to a close 2, to a halt 7, to an end 9, to rest 5, to life 5, to terms 3> 83.8% (5) In 1939 the great decade of Libyan Desert expeditions came to an end, and this vast and silent pocket of the earth became one of the theatres of war. (Ondaatje) Velká dekáda výprav do Libyjské pouště v  roce 1939 skončila a  tenhle velký a rozlehlý kus země se stal jedním z válečných dějišť. The most frequent copular verbs, become and get, have the least predictable com- plements. While get combines almost exclusively with adjectival complements (27% of 6 As shown in Table 1, come is the only copula in the group which displays a preference for PrepP rather than AdjP complementation (74% of its complements are PrepPs). 105 them de-participial),7 become is not colligationally restricted in the choice of complement, admitting – besides adjective phrases – also noun phrases (in 28.6% of clauses). The two verbs thus seem well suited for the expression of any kind of change; the character and circumstances of the process of change may then be expressed by adverbials – compare the difference between becoming aware and growing aware in the following examples, also reflected in the translation. While become indicates merely the resultant state of awareness, with the sudden realisation of being watched expressed by the adverbial at one point (ex. 6, vycítil jsem), the awareness expressed by grow is a gradual process, with the character of the change indicated by the copula itself (ex. 7, začala si uvědomovat). (6) Then at one point, after my back had been turned to the path for some time, I became aware that someone was standing behind me, apparently to watch me work. (Ishiguro) Pracoval jsem chvíli zády k chodníku, když jsem vycítil, že za mnou někdo stojí a zřejmě mě pozoruje. (Ishiguro) (7) She remembers when she had first grown aware of it, somewhere in her teens – it seemed a place rather than a time – kissing her forearm to practise kissing, smell- ing her wrist or bending down to her thigh. (Ondaatje) Vzpomíná si, kdy si to poprvé začala uvědomovat, bylo jí už přes deset – vnímá to spíš jako místo než čas – líbala si předloktí, aby si zkusila líbání, čichala si k zápěstí, anebo se shýbala ke svým stehnům. For some verbo-nominal predications, however, the co-selection of the verb and the complement is a matter of lexical choice rather than a choice motivated by the kind of change, e.g., the noun victim co-occurs with a form of the verb fall in 70.8% of in - stances of the sequence ‘VERB + victim ’ in the British National Corpus.8 Such prefer- ences may be linked to the individual forms of the complement adjective, e.g., things usually go bad (the adjective takes the base form in 89.1% of clauses where a form of bad complements a form of go) but get worse (the comparative form complements get in 91.4% of verbo-nominal predications comprising get + bad). Nevertheless, “[in] many cases, more than one [resulting copular] verb can occur with the same adjective, and it is difficult to give precise conditions for selecting one rather than another”. (Quirk et al., 1986: 1174) 7 The boundary between the get-copular clause and the get-passive is hard to delimit. The approach adopted here is rather unrestrictive, including among copular predications also the constructions termed ‘pseudo-passives ’ by Quirk et al. (1985: 160–171). The verb get “may be best analysed as such [i.e. a copular verb] in sentences which look superficially like passives, but which could not be expanded by an agent” (ibid.: 161). Nor do they have “an active transform” (ibid.: 169). The adjectival reading may be supported by the presence of intensifiers, e.g. I got very bored and depressed, so I went and plugged myself in to its external computer feed. (Adams) – Nudil jsem se, byl jsem depresivní, a tak jsem se napojil na její počítač. 8 Since the evidence provided by our data is insufficient here, we give the numbers from the British National Corpus, accessed through the BNCweb (CQP-edition) available from http://bncweb.lancs .ac.uk/. 108 copular verbs. It was, however, most frequently used as a translation of become, consti- tuting 19.1% of its counterparts. It occurred typically where the subject complement of the English copula was formed by a noun phrase. The universality of stát se, however, appears to hinder its use as a counterpart of verbs other than become. These verbs, as we have seen, refer to a specific type of change – and stát se seems too general an equivalent to render these modifications. They have to be conveyed by other means: for instance, stát se was used as a counterpart of grow only when the English subject complement had the form of an adjective in the comparative. In addition, the gradual increase in the quality indicated by the adjective was usually expressed in Czech by adverbials (together with reduplication in ex. 10). (10) All the while the sound grew louder – and more hauntingly familiar. (Clarke) Zvuk se stával stále silnější a silnější – a důvěrněji známý. As a translation counterpart of become, stát se is virtually restricted to clauses with a noun phrase complement. These predications are classifying or qualifying; identifica- tion does not occur. The focus is on acquiring a quality or function associated with the subject complement noun (ex. 11). (11) A small bolt from a cockpit became jewellery. (Ondaatje) Matice z pilotní kabiny se stala šperkem. Become and stát se are similar in that their most frequent noun collocates tend to denote a function or quality rather than a specific referent.10 Stát se, therefore, seems a suitable translation counterpart of become where become is complemented by a noun phrase. Nevertheless, in 45% of counterparts of become + noun phrase a different trans- lation counterpart was chosen – another inchoative verb (rozvinout se v, (pro)měnit se v – ‘develop into, change into ’ ), the copula být (‘be ’ ), or a phase verb (začít – ‘start ’ ). When complemented by an AdjP, become was translated by stát se only in 4.7% of the instances, reflecting the reluctance of stát se to occur with adjectival complementation. 4.3 Non-inchoative counterparts Apart from inchoative verbs, another translation strategy attested among the equiva- lents of resulting copular predications was to focus explicitly on a particular stage or on 10 Compare the first fifteen noun collocates of stát se in the Czech National Corpus – Syn2010 and become in the British National Corpus (span [1,3], ranked by log-likelihood): stát se <součástí, obě- tí, členem, terčem, symbolem, předmětem, základem, prezidentem, místem, ředitelem, svědkem, tváří, vítězem, hrdinou, předsedou> (‘part, victim, member, target, symbol, object, basis, president, place, director, witness, face, winner, hero, chairman ’ ); become <member, minister, friends, director, focus, law, president, chairman, feature, king, leader, chief, symbol, assistant, secretary>. (Český národní kor- pus – SYN2010. Ústav Českého národního korpusu FF UK, Praha 2010. Available from http://www .korpus.cz.) 109 the gradual development of the change. This can be achieved using either phase-marking verbs or adverbials of time or degree. The adverbials comprise: brzy, čím dál, den ze dne, docela, konečně, náhle, najednou, nakonec, pomalu, stále, teď, už, víc a víc, zničehonic (‘soon, the more … the …, day by day, completely, finally, suddenly, all of a sudden, in the end, slowly, increasingly, now, already, more and more, unexpectedly ’ ). Generally a marginal type of counterpart, adverbials of time and degree are most frequently found with the copular verbs get and grow, typically in the analytic construction combining the adverbial with the copula být (‘be ’ ) (ex. 12). The choice of the type of adverbial modification appears consistent with the overall kind of change associated with the two verbs: get prefers the indication of the final stage of the change (i.e. už, najednou – ‘already, suddenly ’ , ex. 13, although adverbials indicating development do occur as well), while grow refers to gradual changes and tends to be translated by degree adverbials accordingly (stále – ‘increasingly ’ , ex. 12) (12) Madox listened as the sermon grew more impassioned. (Ondaatje) Madox naslouchal, jak je kázání stále ohnivější. (13) Seamus got so impatient that he prodded it with his wand … (Rowling) Seamus už byl tak netrpělivý, že do něj šťouchl hůlkou … The phase verbs found among the translation counterparts of copular verbs comprise začít, chystat se, zůstat (stát/ležet), přestat (‘start, be about to, remain seated/lying, stop ’ ). The explicit expression of the initial phase of the action by the verb začít (‘start ’ ) (or a gradual beginning začínat) is the most frequent and least restricted in combinability. It was used as a counterpart of become, come, get, grow and turn, both in one-to-one corre- spondence (ex. 14) and in the analytic construction. (14) The sappers became permanently suspicious of any object placed casually in a room. (Ondaatje) Ženisté začali podezírat každý náhodně umístěný předmět v místnosti. Zůstat (‘remain ’ ) occurred only as a counterpart of the come-copular predications come to a halt/to rest – zůstat ležet/stát. Although přestat (‘stop ’ ) seems to indicate the final stage of an event or state, it is used rather to mark a transition from one state to another. In English the change is expressed by negating the original state using a negative affix (become careless, become inhuman). (15) “I think you have become inhuman,” she said to me. (Ondaatje) Řekla mi: „Ty už jsi myslím přestal být lidský.” It is perhaps interesting to note that the verbs fall and go were never translated by phase verbs. This may be linked to the fact that the change indicated by fall and go is not a gradual one. As a consequence, there is no time for the initial or final phase of the change. The verbs introduce the result of the change; the process of the change seems irrelevant. 110 5. Step three: Czech counterparts as markers of resulting meaning in English As shown above, the most frequent type of Czech counterpart of the resulting copulas is the inchoative verb. The ‘resulting ’ meaning of the verbs in Czech was typically indi- cated by an aspectual prefix, often in combination with the reflexive formant se/si. The resulting prefixes attested in our data comprise na- (naučit se – ‘get used to ’ ),11 o-/ob-/ od- (ožít, obživnout, odcizit se – ‘come alive, come to life, become estranged ’ ), po- (polekat se, potemnět – ‘get scared, go dark ’ ), roz- (rozzlobit se, rozšířit se, rozžhavit se – ‘become annoyed, grow wider, become incandescent ’ ), s- (sblížit se, setmít se, skončit – ‘become familiar, become dark, come to an end ’ ), u- (udělat se teplo etc., upadnout do spánku, uzavřít se – ‘turn hot, fall into sleep, come full circle ’ ), vy- (vynořit se, vycítit – ‘become visible, become aware ’ ), za- (zabloudit, začervenat se, zahořknout – ‘get lost, go pink, grow bitter ’ ), and z- (zklidnit se, zbělet, zestárnout – ‘become calmer, turn white, grow old ’ ). Not all the prefixes convey purely aspectual meaning, e.g. po- in potemnět (‘go dark ’ expresses degree, and roz- directional or phase modification (Příruční mluvnice češtiny: 197–216). Nevertheless, where indicating intransitive mutation, the above prefixes may be assumed to serve as translation equivalents not only of resulting copular verbs but also of other, structurally diverse, English constructions which share the same conclusive meaning. The prefixes can therefore be used as ‘markers ’ or ‘indicators ’ of inchoative function. The English equivalents of Czech resulting verbs with the above prefixes12 were found to include, besides lexical verbs – such as change or perish – which carry the conclusive meaning in their semantic structure, the following constructions (the occurrence and func- tions of the constructions which had been identified in translations into English as coun- terparts of Czech inchoative prefixes were subsequently checked in original English texts): I. Verbo-nominal constructions: i. copular predications with resulting copulas (e.g. go quieter in ex. 22) or be; ii. other verbo-nominal constructions whose verbs can be characterized as catego- rial, conveying the meaning of (the onset of) change (exx. 16, 17)13 (16) Zničehonic se rozplakala. (Klíma) All of a sudden she burst into tears. (17) Kdyby na ni promluvil tichým, hlubokým hlasem, duše by se osmělila vystoupit na povrch těla a ona by se rozplakala. (Kundera) If he spoke to her in a soft, deep voice, her soul would take courage and rise to the surface of her body, and she would burst out crying. 11 Typical examples are listed in the brackets. 12 The results of the query mapping the English equivalents of the Czech verbs with the prefixes o-, po-, roz-, s-, u-, vy-, z(a)- had to be checked manually since these verb-initial sequences are not always prefixes, nor do they always mark a ‘mutation ’ . 13 The categorial verb may be accompanied by an adverbial particle; the idiomatic expression make up one ’ s mind (‘rozhodnout se, odhodlat se ’) can thus be included here as well. 113 The class includes, e.g., the intransitive verbs broaden, flatten out, quicken, sharpen, stiffen, straighten, caramelize, crystallize, materialize, vaporize. c. Phase verbs indicating the onset of the change: begin, start (ex. 31) (31) … právě rozkvétají trnky. (Klíma) … the wild roses are beginning to bloom. The third step of the analysis can serve as a starting point for various types of ‘step four ’ , such as a frequency and distribution analysis of the inchoative constructions in English, or a study of the possible translation bias due to the different representation of the inchoative constructions in Czech and in English. 6. Conclusion As has been shown, various kinds of resulting meaning expressed by copular verbs can be identified if the analysis of their colligational and lexico-semantic preferences is combined with the examination of the patterns of their translation correspondence. This can be illustrated, for instance, by the copula grow: it is typically complemented by grada- ble adjectives, the adjectives often occur in the comparative or with a degree modifier, and the verb itself takes the finite progressive form more frequently than most result- ing copulas do. The translation counterparts of grow-predications include adverbials of degree and verbs marking a particular phase in the gradual development of the change. In all these aspects the verb grow contrasts with fall, go or come, where the focus is on the result of the change, the process being irrelevant. Other kinds of mutation are associated with semantic preference, positive (come) or negative (go) evaluation of the change, or with involving impersonal (turn) or personal (go) subjects. Two copulas – become and get – can be regarded as means of expressing further unspecified change. The expression of various kinds of ‘becoming ’ by English copular verbs can be seen as parallel to the expression of the same meaning by prefixes in Czech.16 Apart from indicating a change, they are capable of expressing various modifications of the process. These Czech prefixes can therefore be used as ‘markers ’ , which make a useful starting point for the identifica- tion of a range of structurally diverse constructions available in English for the expression of resulting meaning. From the methodological point of view, the study shows that parallel corpora can serve not only as “a means of empirically testing one ’ s intuitions (or hypotheses) about the semantics of linguistic forms that is complementary to the systematic exploitation of the circumstantial evidence provided by monolingual corpora” (Noël, 2003: 759), but also as a means offering an alternative to the ‘form-to-function ’ corpus-driven approach 16 On Hopper and Traugott ’ s cline of grammaticality, however, affixes represent a more grammatical- ized means of expression than copular verbs (Hopper, Traugott, 1993: 7). 114 by providing a way of proceeding the other way round, from a particular meaning to its various formal realizations in the target language.17 REFERENCES Aijmer, K. (2008) Parallel and comparable corpora. In A. Lüdeling, M. Kytö (eds.), Corpus Linguistics. An International Handbook 1: 275–292. Berlin/New York, Walter de Gruyter. Aijmer, K. (2009) Seem and evidentiality. 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Available from http://ucrel .lancs.ac.uk/publications/cl2009. 17 The importance of the ‘function-to-form’ approach was already highlighted by Mathesius (1936: 95): “the only way of approach to different languages as strictly comparable systems is the functional point of view, since general needs of expression and communication, common to all mankind, are the only common denominators to which means of expression and communication, varying from language to language, can reasonably be brought.” 115 Stubbs, M. (2002) Words and Phrases. Corpus Studies of Lexical Semantics. Oxford, Blackwell. Teubert, W. (2001) Corpus linguistics and lexicography. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 6: 125–153. SPONOVÁ SLOVESA TYPU BECOME A ZPŮSOBY VYJADŘOVÁNÍ REZULTATIVNOSTI V ANGLIČTINĚ A ČEŠTINĚ Resumé Článek zkoumá různé odstíny rezultativnosti vyjadřované anglickými sponovými slovesy. Opírá se přitom o paralelní anglicko-český a česko-anglický překladový korpus, součást korpusu InterCorp. Na základě popisu gramatického chování, kolokací a sémantických preferencí jednotlivých sloves a identi- fikace jejich českých překladových protějšků je možné rozlišit mezi sponovými slovesy, která popisují průběh změny (grow), výsledek změny bez ohledu na její průběh (fall, go, come), pozitivní (come) nebo negativní (go) vnímání změny, či mutaci zahrnující osobní (go) nebo neosobní (turn) účastníky. Slovesa get a become fungují jako obecné prostředky vyjádření blíže nespecifikované rezultativnosti. Funkce anglických sponových sloves je tedy obdobou funkce českých rezultativních prefixů (na-, o -, po-, roz-, s-, u-, vy-, za-, z-), které jsou nejčastějšími překladovými protějšky zkoumaných anglických sponových predikací. Studie popisuje, jak je inchoativních sloves s těmito prefixy možné využít jako indikátorů rezultativnosti: jejich anglické překladové protějšky zahrnují vedle neodvozených sloves, která obsahují prvek mutace ve své sémantické struktuře, formálně rozmanité konstrukce, jichž se v angličtině používá k vyjádření rezultativního významu (verbo-nominální konstrukce typu take courage, slovesa s perfek- tivizující adverbiální částicí, např. freeze up, komplexně tranzitivní slovesa s rezultativním doplňkem předmětu, např. drink oneself silly, a další). Článek ukazuje, že oproti jednojazyčným korpusům přinášejí paralelní korpusy nejen zpřesnění popi- su významu zkoumaných konstrukcí, ale nabízejí také možnost, jak postupovat od dané funkce k různým formám jejího vyjádření v cílovém jazyce.