UNIT III

STEP I

Особенности перевода инфинитива и инфинитивных

конструкций

В научной литературе наиболее употребительными являются формы инфинитива Indefinite и Perfect действительного и страдательного залога. Перевод инфинитива представляет определенную трудность, т.к. он не всегда переводится на русский язык неопределенной формой глагола, особенно в тех случаях, когда он по форме совпадает с существительным или прилагательным (an experiment – to experiment). В английском языке ему не всегда предшествует частица to, a именно: после модальных глаголов; глаголов to let - разрешать, to make – заставлять; после сочетаний had better - лучше бы, would rather - предпочел бы; в обороте Complex Object после глаголов восприятия: I heard him sing – Я слышал, как он поет.

Инфинитив в различных функциях переводится следующим образом:

- в функции подлежащего – неопределенной формой глагола или отглагольным существительным:

To explain this phenomenon is the purpose of the chapters that follow.

Объяснение этого явления является целью последующих глав.

или

Целью последующих глав является объяснение этого явления.

To understand this phenomenon is not easy.

Понять это явление нелегко.

- в функции обстоятельства цели – придаточным предложением цели:

He came to explain the situation.

Он пришел, чтобы объяснить ситуацию.

- в функции вводного члена предложения (обычно стоит в начале или середине предложения и отделяется запятой) – деепричастием или инфинитивным оборотом, начинающимся с если:

To begin with, let us discuss the agenda of the meeting.

Прежде всего (для начала) давайте обсудим повестку дня нашего собрания.

It is evident, to return to our discussion, that the new device needs further improvement.

Возвращаясь к нашей дискуссии, очевидно, что новое устройство требует доработки.

В научной речи наиболее употребительны следующие сочетания с инфинитивом, употребляемые в функции вводного члена предложения:

to anticipate – забегая вперед

to begin with – прежде всего, начнем с того, что

to generalize – обобщая (если обобщить)

to judge from – судя по (если судить по)

to mention – если упомянуть

to put it another way – иными словами

to put it briefly – короче говоря

to put it more exactly – точнее говоря

so to say – так сказать

suffice it to say – достаточно сказать

to sum (it) up – подводя итог

to take an example - например

- в функции определения – определительным придаточным предложением (часто с модальным оттенком):

This is a rule not to be forgotten.

Это – правило, которое не следует забывать.

Newton was the first to discover the phenomenon of gravitation.

Ньютон был первым, кто открыл явление гравитации.

- в составном сказуемом (to be + Infinitive) глагол-связка переводится только тогда, когда подлежащее выражено инфинитивом. В остальных случаях глагол-связка, как правило, опускается:

To reproduce this phenomenon is to prove it.

Воспроизвести это явление - значит доказать его.

Инфинитивные обороты

- for-phrase (предлог for + существительное в общем падеже или местоимение в объектном падеже + инфинитив) переводятся придаточным предложением (тип его зависит от функции конструкции в предложении)), в котором подлежащим становится субъект действия, а сказуемым – инфинитив.

He asked for the article to be published as soon as possible.

Он попросил, чтобы его статья была опубликована как можно скорее.

It is possible for the article to be published in the next issue of the journal.

Возможно, что эта статья будет опубликована в следующем номере журнала.

- Complex Object – cложное дополнение - переводится изъяснительным придаточным предложением с союзами что, чтобы, как. При этом следует помнить, что инфинитив, входящий в состав сложного дополнения обозначает действие, а существительное в общем падеже или местоимение в объектном падеже – субъект этого действия:

In ancient times people believed the Earth to be the centre of the Universe. В древние времена люди считали, что Земля является центром Вселенной.

We often hear people complain that the traffic jams have become a part of everyday life of any big city.

Мы часто слышим, как люди жалуются на то, что транспортные пробки стали частью повседневной жизни любого большого города.

- Complex Subject (Cложное подлежащее) состоит из существительного в общем падеже или местоимения в именительном падеже и инфинитива. На русский язык эта конструкция переводится изъяснительным придаточным предложением. При переводе следует помнить, что инфинитив передает действие, относящееся к подлежащему, а глагол в личной форме, стоящий перед ним – отношение к этому действию говорящего, или неуказанного лица. Поэтому на русский язык подлежащее, входящее в конструкцию Complex Subject, переводится подлежащим, инфинитив – сказуемым придаточного предложения, а глагол в личной форме – неопределенно-личным предложением.

The essential fault of this work appears to be in the very plan.

Похоже, что основная ошибка этой работы заключается в самом плане.

Now we shall describe some objects which are thought to belong to this class.

Теперь опишем некоторые предметы, которые, как полагают, относятся к этому классу.

Exercise 1. Define the function of an Infinitive and translate the following sentences into Russian.

1. Gold is known to be the least chemically active of all the metals and does not combine with oxygen to form rust.

2. One of the principle uses of copper is to produce alloys.

3. Hydrogen has been proved to be the most abundant element in the Universe.

4. To convert a fraction into a decimal, divide the denominator into the numerator.

5. Historians suppose the name “London” to come from two Celtic words.

6. For this material to be published next year you must prepare it as soon as possible.

7. Traffic speed limits are set at a level that achieves some balance between the danger of excessive speed and the desire of most people to travel as quickly as possible.

8. This is a programme for you to test it.

9. We heard a printer stop and saw the sheet of paper stuck in the slot.

10. In this part of the tool there is an irregularly made hole of a size large enough to allow a strong cord to pass through for the purpose of suspension.

11. When a programme written in one of these high-level languages is designed to do a specific type of work such as to calculate a company’s payroll or the stress factor on a roof, it is called an applications programme.

12. Arrangements were also made for more computers to be made available in the reading-room.

13. It is for you to decide whether it is worth doing it.

14. To synthesize a human voice, the computer vibrates a speaker cone to try to simulate the acoustical wave patterns produced by the human voice.

15. This chapter sets out to describe characteristics of the process which are not included in the previous chapter.

16. It is well-known, for example, that with people who have often discussed some subject together a few words are enough for them mutually to understand some complex point, which it would take many words for them to explain to an outsider.

17. Institutions either purchase applications programmes as packages or commission their own programmers to write them to meet the specifications of the users.

18. The radioactive fallout from nuclear test explosions appears to be harmful to the atmosphere.

19. Newton proved the weight to be the gravitational force or pull acting on an object.

20. The concept of universal gravity was the greatest contribution of Isaak Newton, the man many consider to be one of the greatest thinkers of all time.

21. The business of which he was a director was about to crash.

22. This kind of attitude goes to show that certain members of the team are not interested in the use of this new method on the industrial scale.

23. The ability of gold to resist corrosion makes it very durable.

24. The force of this conclusion will be apparent in the following chapter when we come to discuss the problem of invention.

25. When consumers visit a store, they are assumed to observe quality.

26. Pure copper is known to be too soft to be used for tools and machine parts.

27. The distillation of the coal is known to produce among other things a group of compounds of carbon and hydrogen.

28. The alloy helps reduce the weight of apparatus substantially, thereby effecting a consid­erable saving of materials.

Exercise 2. Translate the passages into Russian, paying attention to Passive forms, Paticiples and Infinitive constructions. Give two or more variants of translation if possible.

1. Computers are the backbone of modern life. To know how to input, process, store and output data and information is urgent for anyone to find a good job. Significant progress has been made in making the computer easier to use by everyone. The effect of the computer on society is held to be in every area, including government, business, science, arts and education.

2. People have always been extremely important to the functioning of a computer system. In the past, when computers were not so commonplace in business, many people were able to ignore them. Today, however, it is much more difficult for them to avoid becoming part of a computer system.

3. Hardware is known to be the actual computer equipment; it has no capabilities of its own. The equipment must be used with software, the instructions that tell the computer what to do. Systems software written by people comprises the general instructions that tell the computer how to operate; applications software comprises the specific business-task-related instructions that help a user get his or her job done. Procedures are represented by documentation such as users’ manuals, which tell users how to proceed.

4. Throughout the working day vast quantity of fuel and many man-hours are wasted in the traffic jams that occur all over the country because roads have long ago ceased to be able to carry all the traffic put on them. Besides the influence of inadequate road system on the cost of living and on the price of manufactured goods is enormous. There have been many attempts to count the cost of poor roads, and the fact is that the totals are astronomical.

STEP II.

Word-formation: prefixes, denoting number and quantity.

	equi- - равный macro-, micro- - очень маленький macro-, mega- - очень большой mono- - один multi- - много semi- - половина, частично bi- - два over- слишком, пере-		tri- - три quad- - четыре penta- - пять hex- - шесть sept(tem)- - семь oct- - восемь dec- - десять
Monthly - раз в месяц grow - расти circle – круг strategy – стратегия		bimonthly – два раза в месяц overgrow - перерасти semicircle - полукруг macrostrategy - крупномасштабная, глобальная стратегия

Exercise 1. Translate the following pairs of words into Russian paying attention to prefixes.

Skilled – semiskilled; angle – septangle; camera – bicameral; lingual – trilingual; complex – multicomplex; electronics – microelectronics; detached – semidetached; centennial – bicentennial; come – overcome; economics – macroeconomics; player – multiplayer; come – overcome; syllable – monosyllable; metre – hexameter.

Exercise 2. Find the words with prefixes denoting number or quantity and translate the sentences into Russian.

1. The octal and hexadecimal systems are number systems used as a form of shorthand in reading groups of four binary digits.

2. Workers who enter a semiskilled occupation do not have to undergo a long period of training.

3. Your chances to find a good job increase if you are bilingual or trilingual.

4. A megabyte equals approximately one billion bytes.

5. The decimal system is a number system with a base of 10.

6. In the USA congressional elections are a biennial affair; they are held every two years.

7. I think that the multiplexor is not working because somebody has disconnected it by mistake.

8. The two countries have signed a bilateral agreement to encourage economic cooperation with each other.

9. Assuming each firm behaves optimally, implying that one brand for each of the three original producers constitutes an equilibrium in pure strategies, we can derive the upper and lower limits for their outcome.

10. The US legislature is bicameral; it consists of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

11. The introduction of semiconductor technology revolutionized the computer industry.

STEP 3

I. Translate the following texts in written form paying attention to passive forms, participles and Infinitives.

1. What is the nature of the scientific attitude, the attitude of the man or woman who studies and applies physics, biology, chemistry or any other science? What are their special methods of thinking and acting? What qualities do we usually expect them to possess? To begin with, we expect a successful scientist to be full of cu­riosity — he wants to find out how and why the universe works. He usually directs his attention towards problems which have no satisfactory explanation, and his curiosity makes him look for the underlying relationships even if the data to be analysed are not apparently interrelated. He is a good observer, accurate, patient and objective. Furthermore, he is not only critical of the work of others, but also of his own, since he knows man to be the least reliable of scientific instruments. And to conclude, he is to be highly imaginative since he often looks for data which are not only complex, but also incomplete.

2. To speculate about the future is one of the most basic qualities of man. It involves two aspects: one is to forecast what the future development will be and the other is to determine in what appro­ximate period of time it is going to take place. To make such a prog­nosis means to learn from the past experience and to extrapolate the knowledge into the future. Recently, however, the rate of change has been so great as to make it difficult to learn from experience, at least as far as the time factor is concerned. To take but one example, a prediction of man's possible landing on the Moon around the turn of the century was made as late as 1961, only 8 years before the actual event! So, to be on the safe side, we had better leave time to take care of ourselves and concentrate our attention on what the future may be like. There is yet another problem involved: are we to accept submissiv­ely any possible course of events, or are we to work for a future most suited for most people? The choice is to be made, at different levels, by every individual and by every society.

3. The biological effect of nuclear radiations (α, β, and γ rays and neutrons) can be summarized in one word - destruc­tion. Any of these radiations, if applied in sufficient quanti­ty, will destroy the tissues exposed to it. The hazard may be incurred either by external irradiation, when the skin usually receives the largest dose, or by internal irradiation, after the ingestion or inhalation of radioactive materials. To assess the magnitude of the radiation hazard and to formu­late protective measures we should first inquire whether the effects to be dealt with have a threshold — that is, a dose level below which no damage will be produced. If a thresh­old exists and can be measured for different radiations, a reliable system of tolerance dose levels can be laid down. So far, the attempts to demonstrate a threshold for radiation damage have been inconclusive. It is believed that some of the changes resulting from very small doses are reversible, but other effects appear to be cumulative and it is probably wise to assume that there is no threshold.