Slovene Linguistic Studies
https://hdl.handle.net/1808/789
2024-03-28T16:50:58ZTranslating from Bulgarian – Bulgarian Gerundial Clauses in Slovene Literary Translations
https://hdl.handle.net/1808/29679
Translating from Bulgarian – Bulgarian Gerundial Clauses in Slovene Literary Translations
Grošelj, Robert
The aim of the article is to analyse translation equivalents of Bulgarian gerundial clauses in Slovene translations of five Bulgarian literary works. (1) The analysed works include 477 gerundial clauses with different adverbial meanings, resulting from their semantic-syntactic inexplicitness or extensiveness – gerundial clauses represent co-occurring dependent predicative structures with a general adverbial meaning, more explicitly determined by the relation between the semantic content of the superordinate and the dependent gerundial structure. Bulgarian gerundial clauses most frequently indicate time, manner, time-manner, cause, time-cause and result. (2) Their most frequent translation equivalents are the so-called morpho-syntactic expansions which are morpho-syntactically more explicit than the corresponding translation units, cf. coordinate (32,3%), subordinate (24,1%) and special finite clauses (8%), which include detached and modified clause structures (with the gerundial clause transformed into the main finite clause or the gerund transformed into the predicate of the main clause). They are followed by non-finite or verbless clauses (19,5%), morpho-syntactically more reduced word/ phrase translation equivalents (11,9%) and omissions (4,2%). The prevalent translation structures are conjunctive coordinate finite clauses (27,9%), gerundial clauses (18%), temporal subordinate finite clauses (12,4%), prepositional phrases (10,3%) and detached finite clauses (6,7%). (3) The syntactic-semantic relation is expressed in the least explicit way by Slovene gerundial or verbless clauses, conjunctive coordinate and special finite clauses (approx. 55%), making them similar to Bulgarian gerundial clauses; more explicit syntactic-semantic properties characterise adversative, consecutive and causal coordinate clauses and word/ phrase translation equivalents. The original syntactic function – adjunct or predicative modifier – is maintained in most subordinate finite, gerundial or verbless clauses and word/phrase translation equivalents, while coordinate and special finite clauses diverge from the syntactic function of Bulgarian gerundial clauses. (4) The semantics of the source-text gerundial clauses is best preserved in subordinate/ coordinate causal finite clauses, object and predicative modifying clauses with a causal or modal meaning, subordinate finite clauses indicating condition, result, manner and concession, in modal adverbs, modal or temporal adverbial phrases and a qualitative adjective phrase; a similar semantic overlapping exists in the case of Slovene gerundial clauses which correspond to Bulgarian gerundial clauses with the following adverbial meanings: manner, cause, time, time- -manner, result, time-cause, time-condition, purpose-result and manner-cause. Semantic deviations from the source-text structures are more frequent in the case of adversative and consecutive coordination, comparative, final, temporal and relative subordinate clauses, prepositional phrases and verbless clauses. Conjunctive coordination and special finite clauses are, on the other hand, semantically extensive – they correspond to heterogeneous source-text meanings.
2019-01-01T00:00:00ZComitative Constructions in Slovenian: A Comparison with Other South Slavic Languages and Russian
https://hdl.handle.net/1808/29678
Comitative Constructions in Slovenian: A Comparison with Other South Slavic Languages and Russian
Uhlik, Mladen; Žele, Andreja
The paper focuses on Slovenian comitative constructions with two human participants who are involved in the same situation: the first participant, most frequently expressed by a nominative noun phrase, acts as a nucleus of the comitative construction, whereas the other accompanying participant is expressed by means of a prepositional phrase. All Slovenian examples of comitative constructions are presented in parallel with their possible equivalents in Russian and Shtokavian. Comitative constructions typically found in Slovenian are those that act as subjects, the subject emphasizing the predicative relation. The predicative relation suggests mutual dependence of participants and predicates, which is why the choice of the form of the predicate often determines the number of referential participants. The first part presents two comitative constructions. The first one includes two participants, which are often detached, and a singular predicate (Slovenian Anton je gledal film z Ano ‘Anton watched a movie with Ana’). The second one consists of two contiguous participants that act as a complete noun phrase (Slovenian Midva z Ano gledava film ‘Ana and I are watching a movie’) demanding a non-singular predicate. Differences between Slavic languages show up in the second comitative construction: Slovenian, for example, only allows constructions with personal pronouns in dual (midva z Ano), in which the pronoun has to include the other participant in the instrumental case. This is how Slovenian differs from Shtokavian, in which contiguous constructions with an inclusive accompanying participant and a plural predicate are not possible (*mi s tobom pišemo). The inclusiveness of participants in Slovenian comitative constructions is also related to the dual form of the predicate, especially in those cases in which the first participant remains unexpressed (Z Ano piševa pismo ‘Ana and I are writing a letter’). The dual form of the predicate is linked to the difference between Slovenian and Shtokavian, which lacks dual. The unexpressed pronoun vidva (‘you two’) denoting the addressee in the Slovenian sentence S profesorjem se lepo imejta / Lepo se imejta s profesorjem (‘You and professor have a nice time’) may receive an inclusive interpretation that includes the accompanying participant. In its Shtokavian counterpart with a plural predicate L(ij)epo se provedite s profesorom (‘Have a nice time with the professor’), however, the unexpressed pronoun vi (‘you’), is by no means in an inclusive relation to the professor. Profesor in the Shtokavian example assumes the role of the circumstance and is thus not part of the comitative construction. The comparison with Shtokavian shows that it is precisely the Slovenian dual (the dual form of the predicate with a dual personal pronoun) that enables and also announces the inclusive comitative construction. It should be emphasized that contiguous comitative constructions with the first participant expressed by a proper noun and a non-singular predicate (Russian Павел с Евой пришли ‘Pavel and Eva came’) are not characteristic of South Slavic languages. In these languages, a union of two proper noun agents is expressed through coordination and conjunction (Slovenian Pavel in Eva sta prišla, Shtokavian Pavel i Eva su došli). In contrast to Russian, the use of inclusive contiguous comitative construction in Slovenian and Shtokavian is rather unusual. The second part discusses differences between predicates that necessarily imply a common action and predicates that can only express a common action contextually. It was established that reciprocity in the first type of predicates is more frequently expressed with reflexive verbs in Slovenian and Shtokavian than in Russian (Slovenian prepirati se, Shtokavian svađati se vs. Russian спортить ‘argue’). It is also noteworthy that Russian fundamentally differs from South Slavic languages in that a comitative construction is also used to express common possession (Russian твоя/ваша с Машей книга ‘your and Masha’s book’). Different possibilities of translating this possessive construction into Slovenian are provided.
2019-01-01T00:00:00ZMulti-Word Lexical Units in General Monolingual Explanatory Dictionaries of Slavic Languages
https://hdl.handle.net/1808/29677
Multi-Word Lexical Units in General Monolingual Explanatory Dictionaries of Slavic Languages
Perdih, Andrej; Ledinek, Nina
In the article, the typology and the macro- and microstructure positioning of multi- word lexical units in general monolingual explanatory dictionaries of five Slavic languages (Slovenian, Croatian, Slovak, Polish and Russian) are analysed. The research showed that MLUs in these dictionaries are most commonly treated on the microstructural level (with the exception of the newest general monolingual explanatory dictionary of Polish language), where typologically comparable or similar MLUs are treated in various microstructural sections, most commonly among dictionary examples and in various types of MLU sections. The differences in the treatment of MLUs can arise also from the specifics of the medium in which a dictionary was first published. The dictionaries built primarily for web and other digital environments are based on structured machine readable databases, therefore the MLUs are regarded as equivalent to single-word lexical units in the sense that they require as systematic and comprehensive a dictionary description as single-word lexical units. Consequently, the same types of data are normally afforded to these units. At the same time, such a shift in the treatment of MLUs can also be attributed to the development of lexicology, lexicography and meta-lexicography. In the newest dictionaries, the treatment of MLUs is influenced also by the research on user perspective and the possibility to incorporate a dictionary into language portals, while the comprehensive treatment of MLUs is motivated also by the potential of the dictionary data for the linguistic research, and the development of language technologies and natural language processing. With regard to the findings about the typology and positioning of MLUs in these dictionaries, the article also focuses on the treatment of MLUs in eSSKJ: The Dictionary of the Slovenian Standard Language, 3rd edition, the new monolingual general explanatory dictionary of the Slovenian language. In this dictionary, MLUs are treated in a similar way to single-word lexical units and are given relative autonomy in the dictionary structure.
2019-01-01T00:00:00ZRemarks on Slovene Clitic Sequences
https://hdl.handle.net/1808/29676
Remarks on Slovene Clitic Sequences
Rath, Alexander
Clitic sequencing in Slovene is mainly the ordering of clitic forms of the personal pronouns, which are usually bound to the second topological position in the Slovene sentence. This ordering corresponds to the type of sequence described by Wackernagel (1892) for the Indo-European languages in general. The first normative description of the inner syntax of Slovene clitic sequences was published by Škrabec (1895). His description was borrowed by Breznik (1916) and became part of the tradition of Slovene grammars that was continued by Toporišič in the second half of the twentieth century with his Slovene Grammar (Slovenska slovnica). Although Slovenska slovnica by Toporišič is regarded as a normative work, the interpretation that clitic combinations not listed in the work were, therefore, forbidden is at least questionable because Toporišič does not make this claim. In an examination of publicly available contemporary text corpora, we found a number of clitic combinations that are not covered by the grammar. Besides other combinations not mentioned in the grammar, we found mainly doubled accusatives, which occur for various reasons. For example, some tri-valent verbs take two accusatives instead of one accusative and one genitive, which is also a matter of historical change as with the verb učiti se ‘to learn.’ Interesting sequencing also occurs in sentences containing a finite and an infinite verb describing a complex event, e.g. ‘I see her carrying her daughter’ -> ‘I see her carrying her.’ Regarding this topic, linguistic variation is of great importance as the measure of acceptance might depend on dialectal and historical factors as well as on the degree of interactivity (spoken vs. written language, etc.) and genre. The examples listed in this article were presented to academic teachers of Slovene studies asking them for their opinion regarding the register of each sentence. Their comments and some additional analysis for every example are listed in this paper. As expected, there was no uniform opinion among them, which is another argument for additional research on Slovene sociolinguistics as well as on the clitic sequence in particular.
2019-01-01T00:00:00Z