Transcript 1 - Lancaster University

Michaela Martinková
Palacký University, Olomouc
Czech Republic
My major objective in this presentation is to
investigate the status of phrases with wish when
complemented by a finite clause, through a close
analysis of Czech equivalents of these sentences in a
parallel translation corpus.
A more general question: To what extent can a
systematic study of translations reveal facts about a
certain language phenomenon we would have failed to
notice otherwise?
Corpora used:
Preliminary and any supplementary research done on
the BNC, then InterCorp
InterCorp
http://ucnk.ff.cuni.cz/intercorp/
 parallel corpus of Czech and 22 languages with Czech as the
pivot language
 developed at Charles University Prague
 about 50 million words
English-Czech and Czech-English component
English as a source language
25 texts, mostly fiction
Project Syndicate
English as a target language
7 novels and one academic text
Preliminary research
Wish complementation basics
Quirk et al (1985) list wish [V] among several groups of verbs
according to its complementation: monotransitive (B), complex
transitive (C) and ditransitive (D):
B3 those complemented by a finite clause
I wish (that) she were here. (Q 1183)
B6 those complemented by a subjectless infinitive clause
Do you wish to comment on that? [BNC HVH 85]
B8 those complemented by to-infinitive clause (with subject)
Do you wish me to stay? [BNC BMN 2099]
C1 those complemented by an adjective phrase as object
complement Who had reason to wish her ill, then? [BNC AB9 1572]
C2 those complemented by a ‘noun phrase as object
complement’ I have often wished myself a millionaire. (Q 1199)
D 1 those complemented by noun phrases as both indirect and
direct object: They wished him good luck (Q 1209)
What is the frequency of the above-mentioned types of
complementation of wish for individual personal pronouns
as subjects of wish?
BNC-based analysis
More specifically, due to the size of the BNC,
 what is the total number of tokens of individual
personal pronouns as subjects of wish
 what is the number of to-infinitive complements of
wish for individual personal pronoun subjects of wish
 what is the number of finite clause complements of
wish for individual personal pronoun subjects of wish
High percentage of complementation by finite clauses after
singular personal pronouns, more specifically, high frequency
of the phrases
I wish
I wished
she wished
he wished
What is the distribution of personal pronouns as subjects of
the complementing clauses after these phrases?
Frequencies of personal pronouns as subjects of finite
clauses complementing I wish, I wished, she wished, he
wished in the BNC
I
you
he
she
it
we
they
I wish
615
221
74
29
61
74
60
I wished
80
10
11
5
8
4
8
he wished
0
0
95
11
7
0
4
she wished 0
0
35
145
7
0
4
(including
22 could)
(including
47 could)
The subject of the complementing finite clause is most likely
to be the same pronoun as the subject of wish.
Phonological reductions of the phrases with wish
There are 58 tokens of Wish at the beginning of the sentence
followed by a clause in the BNC, that is, with the subject (I)
omitted.
34 of the 58 tokens were found in spoken language
Examples:
Wish you boys would make your minds up! [BNC KD5 8889]
Wish he'd make his mind up [BNC KBW 13759]
Wish I could find my glasses she said. [BNC KBD 7129]
INTERCORP texts
”Škoda že profesorka McGonagallová
zase nenadržuje nám,” řekl Harry.
[Pity that McGonagall doesn’t favor
us…]
Rowling, J.K.,Harry Potter and
the Sorcerer's Stone
"Wish McGonagall favored us,"
said Harry.
The main clause status of the phrase with wish is thus
open to argument.
What about the dependent clause status of the finite
clause complementing I wish and I/he/she wished ?
That complementizer is often omitted.
I
you
he
she it
we
they
I wish that
16
3
4
1
3
5
0
I wished that
6
0
0
0
0
0
0
he wished that
0
0
12
1
0
0
0
she wished that
0
0
3
13
1
0
1
Pseudoclefting: Can these ‘dependent finite clauses’ be
pseudoclefted?
What I wish [be] CLAUSE was not found in the BNC
What I/he/she wished [be] CLAUSE was not found in the
BNC either, but in Intercorp there is one token:
What she wished was that she’ d had a chance to talk to
the murdered salesgirl (John Irving, A Widow for a Year)
Perhaps these finite clauses are not dependent (nominal
object) clauses, and phrases with wish are not main clauses.
Suggestion
I wish when complemented by a finite clause is not a
main clause but rather a modality marker.
Do the Czech translations support this thesis?
Can the same be said about I wished / she wished / he
wished?
Distribution of tenses in finite clauses after I wish in Intercorp
(English source texts)
T past perfect
O ´d
had ´d
T (-en)
(-en) (inf)
A
L
I
32
5
would
would
(inf)
1
could
would could could past
have
have tense subj.
were
(-en)
(-en)
15
1
7 and
2 were
1
-ing
you
10
he
0
she
1
it
1
we
4
they
1
noun phrase 15
there
5
somebody
1
3
3
1
2
1
1
1
2 were
2
5
1
3
2
-ing
1
4
1
1
4
A close analysis reveals that translating phrases with
wish when complemented by a finite clause is very far
from straightforward and translators seem to be
struggling with it.
There are 19 different Czech equivalents of the phrase
I wish when complemented by a finite clause and 14
different equivalents of such phrases with wished
(I/he/she wished) .
Concrete data with literal translations into English are
provided in the tables in the slides to follow.
Though numbers of tokens are sometimes quite low,
certain tendencies seem to be there.
Czech equivalents of I wish
In the first part of the table I wish is NOT translated by a
main clause.
I wish... __

kéž by/bych/bychom
[if only, may]
už aby
[it’s high time]
ať + finite verb
[let (him, her…) inf]
kdybych (tak)
[if only]
imperative form
škoda že (ne)
[pity that]
total could could would simple past
have
past perfect
6
2
4
16
3 and
1 past
1
1
0+1
0+1
3
1
2
1
1
5
conditional
1
1
3
I wish cont.
mrzí mě, že (ne)
I regret that... I am sorry that
je mi líto, že (ne)
I am sorry that
lituju, že (ne) I am sorry that
přeju/i si, aby
total could could would Past
have
tense
1
2
1
2
1
3+2
1+1
1
0+1
10
2
1
2
přál(a) bych si inf I would wish inf
chtěl(a) bych, aby
2
2+1
1
2+1
domnívám se, že by měla
0+1
1
1
I wish that
přál(a) bych si, aby
I would wish that
I would want it that
chtěl(a) bych inf I would want to
chci, aby I want that...
I think that ... should
byl bych rád, kdybys, kdybychom
I would be glad if
(moc, tak, velmi) rád bych l-form
I would gladly
potěšilo by mě, kdybys
it would please me if
1
4
6
1
1
1
1 past
3
1
conditional
1 and 1 past
conditional
0+1
1
3
5
Past
perfect
1
1
1
1
Some notes on I wish … would
‘Would in this position can have volitional colouring: we wish you
would come and stay with us. I wish you wouldn’t drink so much.
Such remarks often have the force of requests or commands’
(Leech 2004:123)
For Searle (1975:64-5) I wish you wouldn’t do that is one of
sentences ‘conventionally used in the performance of indirect
directives’.
Adams, Douglas
Stopařův průvodce po galaxii,
”Přestaň s tím pořád otravovat,”
houkl na něj Ford.
[“Stop bothering me with that”]
Adams, Douglas,
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
"I wish you’d stop saying that,"
shouted Ford.
ELT materials:
‘We use I wish… would… when we want something to happen or
when we want somebody to do something. The speaker is not
happy with the present situation’ (Murphy 1994:80).
Franzen, Jonathan, Rozhřešení, 2004
Franzen, Jonathan,The Corrections, 2001
Steelová, Danielle,Strážný anděl,2004
Steel, Danielle,Johnny Angel,2003
Byl bych moc rád, kdyby ses
alespoň jednou v životě dokázala I wish once in your life you would
na něco vykašlat.”
let something drop."
[I would be very glad if…]
„Byla bych radši, kdybys
počkal a najedl se až doma,“
povzdychla si matka.
[his mother gave a sigh]….
"I wish you'd wait and eat here
once in a while," his mother said.
Adams, Douglas,Stopařův průvodce po galaxii,
”Byl bych rád, kdybys už jednou
přestal skuhrat kvůli tý zatracený
planetě.
[I would be glad if you once (in life)]
Adams, Douglas,
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
"I wish you’d stop sulking about
that bloody planet," said Ford.
Though the subject of the finite clause (which arguably is
to express a command) is very often you, that is the
Addressee = a direct participant in conversation, it does
NOT have to be you…
Kundera, Žert,1991
Ať jde k čertu !
[Let him go to hell]
Kundera, The Joke,1992
I wish he’d go to hell !
ať už konečně někdo….
[let finally someone do …]
mělo by se …
[it should be done]
No solution for *I wish anyone/anybody would
 this is NOT a non-assertive context!
Wish in the past tense:
Finite clauses after I wished, he wished, she wished
in Intercorp
and their Czech equivalents
T past perfect
O ‘d (had) had ‘d
T (+-en) (+-en) (would)
A
+ (inf)
L
I wished I
I wished
they
he wished
he
7
1
would
would would could could past
+
have
have tense subj.
were
(inf) (+-en)
(-en)
1
1
could
3
2
1
11 1 (never)
3
1
3
3
(hadn’t)
she wished
she
she wished
he
9
she wished
NP
she wished
they
she wished
it
5
3
3
4
1
2
1
1
(hadn’t)
2
1
2
1
1
1
1
I/he/she wished .... 
total could could would simple past
kéž by/bych/bychom...[if only, may]
1
mrzí Acc.Pers.Pron, že (ne)
1
1
[I/he/she regret(s) / is sorry that]
(moc, tak, velmi...) rád by(ch) l-form
3
[I/he/she would (so, very...) gladly]
mrzelo Acc.pers.pron, že ne
2
[I/he/she regretted / was sorry that]
(za)litoval(a) jsem, že, litoval toho
6
[I/he/she was sorry that... / about that]
13+1 2+1
přál(a) (jsem) si, aby(ch)
[I/he/she wished that]
…jak si přála, že by měli
1
[...in a way she wished they should]
přála (jsem) si inf [I wished inf]
1
2
1
toužil(a) (jsem) inf
2
[I/he/she desired inf]
(za)toužila, aby [she desired that]
1
byla ráda, že [she was glad that]
1
býval by raději, kdyby
1
[he would rather have -en]
radši měla [she should have –en]
1
have
past
1
1
1
perfect
1
2
1
1
2
1
4
2
4 and 2
past cond.
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
Concluding remarks
I.
The fact that the I wish construction when followed by a
finite clause is a modality marker seems to be supported by
its Czech translations. It is often the case that it is not
translated by a main clause.
a.
If the subject of the complementing clause is you
(addressee), especially followed by would, the whole sentence
can have the illocutionary force of a directive and may be
translated with a verb in the imperative form.
Adams, Douglas
Stopařův průvodce po galaxii,
”Přestaň s tím pořád otravovat,”
houkl na něj Ford.
[“Stop bothering me with that”]
Adams, Douglas,
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
"I wish you’d stop saying that,"
shouted Ford.
b. In one case I wish translates the periphrastic imperative
with the optative particle ať .
Kundera, Žert,1991
Ať jde k čertu !
[Let him go to hell]
Kundera, The Joke,1992
I wish he’d go to hell !
c. Very often, the somewhat dated optative particle kéž is
used in Czech translations.
d. Sentences with I wish are often translated by reduced
phrases (stažené výpověďní útvary) in which the main
clause is either completely lost (kdyby tak [if only]), reduced
into a particle (už aby [high time]), or particle-like element
(škoda že [pity that]), where the predicate verb, and often
also the comma separating the ‘main clause’ from the
‘dependent clause’ are lost (je škoda, že [it is a pity that] ).
This happens when the complementing finite clauses contain
verbs in the past perfect tense, could with the past or even
present infinitive (and theoretically also verbs in the past
tense). The sentence then has a reversed polarity.
“Škoda že ses nezeptal !”
Franzen, Jonathan
The Corrections, 2001
[Pity you didn’t ask!]
"I wish you'd asked ! "
Škoda , že jsem to neudělala sama, Lindsey, Johanna,
ale to jsem nevěděla to co dneska . A Loving Scoundrel,2004
[Pity I didn’t do it myself…]
I wish I could've done it for m'self,
but I didn't know then what I do
now .
e. Polarity is also reversed in translations of I wish as mrzí
mě and je mi líto [I am sorry], which were used if the
complementing finite clause contained a verb in past perfect
and once also a verb in simple past.
After all, there is ‘a negative entailment or presupposition’
(Huddleston and Pullum 2002:1009) for all content clauses
complementing wish and reversing the sentence polarity in
Czech may be its proof.
Lituju, že jsem vám nenakopal
zadek , když jsem k tomu měl
dobrý důvod.
[I am sorry I didn’t kick…]
“ Mrzí mě, že jsem neměl
takový krásný veliký bazén ,
když jsem byl malý kluk , ”
poznamenal šéf, ačkoliv všichni
věděli, že bazén v YMCE není
ani krásný, ani veliký .
[I am sorry I didn’t have…]
Brownová, Sandra,
Hello, Darkness, 2003
I wish I'd kicked your ass while I
had a good excuse . "
Franzen, Jonathan,
The Corrections, 2001
"I wish I'd had a nice big swimming
pool like that when I was growing
up, " the boss said, although for all
he knew the pool at the Y was
neither nice nor big .
II. There is a discrepancy between translations of I wish and
clauses with wish in the past tense (I wished, he wished, she
wished).
Due to the fact that wishes are only reported here, the
original illocutionary force is lost, which means that
neither imperatives nor optative particles are used in the
translations (with one exception of kéž in a translation of
arguable quality) .
 phrases in which the main clause is entirely lost (kdyby
tak) or reduced to a particle (už aby) are not used in the
translation of I/he/she wished.
 the particle-like expression škoda is never used, as it is
closely related to the speaker of the utterance and thus it
does not survive reporting, unless the verb be is added and a
reporting verb is overtly mentioned, such as in říkala, že je
škoda, že (she said that it was a pity that…).
 these sentences , however, are avoided in translation, due to
the stylistically inappropriate repetition of the conjunction že,
which cannot be omitted in Czech.
 the verb přát si [to wish] is not used performatively or in
the conditional mood but in the past tense, except when a
reporting verb is overtly mentioned (also note the inverted commas).
Řekla Andreovi , že by si přála , aby
ten stařec „ nás nechal na pokoji “, a
proklela „ nastokrát to protivné
Mogliano “.
[She told Andrea she would wish
that…]
She told Andrea she wished the old man
"would just leave us in peace" and cursed
"that wretched Mogliano a hundred
times ."
 Phrases translating be sorry are always in the
past tense, never in the conditional mood or in the
present indicative.
A close analysis of translations can thus bring
some supporting evidence and reveal facts
about a language phenomenon we might have
failed to notice otherwise.
One note at the end…
Intercorp data: Numbers of wish in English source texts
(singular personal pronouns as subjects of wish)
total
to-inf. clause
finite clause
no
subj.
with
subj.
no
that
that
1
63
7
2? 3
0
2?
4
0 NP –
NP/adj
pseudocleft
I wish
80
I wished
13
2
0
7
1
0
you wish
34
12
0
1
0
17 2
1
you wished
1
he wishes
8
4
0
2
0
1
1?
he wished
34
9
2
9
2
6
3
she wishes
1
she wished
27
3
it wishes
8
2
it wished
0
(Project Syndicate)
(for)
NP
2
1
0
0
0
16
2
1
0
0
1
2
4
0
3
1
2
1
1
Numbers of wish in English target texts
(singular personal pronouns as subjects of wish)
total to-inf. clause finite clause
without/with (asyndetic link /
subj.
that / pseudo-cleft)
I wish
14
5
I wished
2
you wish
4
1
you wished
1
1
he wishes
4
4
he wished
7
6
she wishes
0
she wished
11
it wishes
0
it wished
0
6
1
5
0 NP –
NP/adj
1
2
1
1
3
2
2
1
(for)
NP
 English target texts differ from English source texts
as far as the clauses with wish are concerned.
 Translators from Czech to English do not perhaps
make full use of the phrases with wish, especially
where the match is not literal, that is they do not use
them to translate sentences with škoda and those
with an illocutionary force of directives.
Thank you for your attention.
Selected bibliography
Dušková, L. 2006. Mluvnice současné angličtiny na pozadí češtiny. Academia.
Grepl, M. a P. Karlík. 1998. Skladba češtiny. Votobia.
Huddleston, R., and G. Pullum. 2002. The Cambridge Grammar of the English
Language. CUP.
Johansson, S. 2007. Seeing through multilingual corpora. In Facchinetti,
R.(ed), Corpus Linguistics 25 Years on. Rodopi.
Leech, G. 2004. Meaning and the English Verb. Pearson Education Limited.
Mluvnice češtiny (3). Skladba. Praha, Academia 1986
Příruční mluvnice češtiny. 2000. Nakladatelství Lidové noviny.
Quirk, R. et al. 1985. Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language.
Longman.
Searle, J. 1975. "Indirect speech acts." In Syntax and Semantics, 3: Speech
Acts, ed. P. Cole & J. L. Morgan, pp. 59–82. New York: Academic Press.
Czech National Corpus - InterCorp. Institute of the Czech National Corpus FF
UK, Praha. Accessible at WWW: http://ucnk.ff.cuni.cz/intercorp/
The British National Corpus, version 2 (BNC World). 2001. Distributed by
Oxford University Computing Services on behalf of the BNC Consortium.
URL: http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/