Bart Papegaaij and Klaus Schubert
TEXT COHERENCE
IN
TRANSLATION
1988
FORIS PUBLICATIONS
(Distributed Language
Translation 3)
[copyright Mouton de Gruyter]
Contents
Foreword … 8
Chapter 1. Text coherence in machine translation
An appraisal of the problem and some prerequisites for its solution … 9
1.1.
Text and context … 11
1.2.
Text linguistics at a glance … 13
1.3.
Distributed Language Translation … 15
1.4.
Some terms and concepts of grammar … 17
Chapter 2. Clues and devices of text coherence
A practical analysis … 20
2.1. English to Esperanto: a sample translation … 21
2.1.1.
The text
… 21
2.1.2.
Circumstantial information … 23
2.1.3.
A
superstructure of text … 24
2.1.4. A close-up of some translation steps … 26
2.1.5.
Conceptual proximity … 29
2.1.6.
Tense, mood, aspect and voice … 32
2.1.7.
Adding explicitness … 35
2.1.8. Theme and rheme, repetition of words and syntagmata … 35
2.1.9.
Pronominal reference … 37
2.1.10.
Names, terms, abbreviations … 40
2.1.11.
Voice and markedness … 41
2.1.12. Prominence and deep-case structure … 44
2.1.13.
Rhetorical patterns … 46
2.1.14.
Stylistic changes … 47
2.1.15.
Conclusion … 48
2.2. Deictic reference … 50
2.2.1.
Pronouns and translation … 51
2.2.2.
Pronouns and text coherence … 53
2.2.3.
Syntactic
restrictions … 56
2.2.4.
Syntactic redundancy … 58
2.2.5. Syntactic rules and semantic features … 63
2.2.6.
The inadequacy of syntactic and semantic features … 66
2.2.7.
Focus
… 67
2.2.8.
Speech acts … 72
2.2.9.
Conclusion … 72
2.3. Content word reference … 74
2.3.1.
Lexical variation … 75
2.3.2.
Reference identity and translation … 76
2.3.3.
Indefinite
versus definite reference … 78
2.3.4.
Directing the search … 80
2.3.5.
Definiteness
without modification … 82
2.3.6.
Identity of sense or reference … 82
2.3.7.
Types of definite reference … 85
2.3.8.
Searching for reference … 87
2.3.9.
Conclusion … 90
2.4. Communicative functions: theme and rheme … 92
2.4.1.
Thematic progression … 94
2.4.2.
Analyzing thematic progression … 99
2.4.3.
Given and new … 102
2.4.4.
Focusing rules … 106
2.4.5.
Breaking expectations, reintroduction of concepts … 109
2.4.6.
The complete pattern … 120
2.4.7.
Thematic patterns as a summary mechanism … 122
2.4.8.
The complete pattern, continued … 123
2.4.9.
Conclusion … 127
2.5. Reduction to verbal elements … 128
2.5.1.
Case grammar … 128
2.5.2.
The verb as central element … 130
2.5.3.
Nominalized verbal elements … 134
2.5.4.
Some sample analyses … 135
2.5.5. Using extended expectations to solve definite reference … 140
2.5.6. Coherence through 'deep' reference … 141
2.5.7.
Translating metaphorical expressions … 142
2.5.8 When is a word a verb? … 143
2.5.9 Finding parallel structures … 145
2.5.10 Conclusion … 147
2.6. Rhetorical structures and logical connections … 148
2.6.1.
Rhetorical patterns … 148
2.6.2.
Logical connectives … 154
2.6.3.
Conclusion … 156
2.7. Towards the translation of text coherence … 158
Chapter 3. Text coherence with translation grammar … 159
3.1.
On
the translatability of language units … 160
3.2.
Coherence of entities … 167
3.2.1 .Lexeme choice … 167
3.2.2. Deixis and
reference … 170
3.3. Coherence of focus … 173
3.3.1.
How 'free' is word order? … 174
3.3.2.
Communicative syntagma ordering
… 176
3.3.3. Grammatical features determined by syntagma ordering … 177
3.3.4. Excursus on word order in dependency syntax … 182
3.4.
Coherence of events … 184
3.5.
Pragmatics - an escape from text grammar? … 189
3.5.1.
The kind of translation-relevant pragmatic knowledge
… 190
3.5.2.
Full understanding? … 194
3.5.3.
Knowledge representation … 196
3.6. Towards implementation … 198
Index … 200
References … 206