The vague nature of the English syntax

Usually English sentences can be translated in different ways. If we don’t have larger context, the sentences sound quite ambiguous:

*He swore the day he was born. –“он проклял день свого рождения” or “он выругался в свой день рождения”

People usually speak of ambivalence, which is the double meaning caused by the double function of a syntactical structure.

*He had his horse killed – “под ним убили лошадь“ or ”он отправил лошадь на бойню”.

If we have to translate orally, all these things are clarified by extra linguistic factors, by the communicative situation. In written translation ambivalence requires attention not only to the immediate context, but also to a larger context that may content a necessary clue.

There are structures that cause a lot of trouble, such as absolute constructions. If it is a case of oral translation, then the intonation helps to solve the problem. In written translation the difficulty can be removed by a thorough analysis.

*Do you expect me to sleep (1) with you (2) in the room?

If we make pause 1, the translation is “разве можно заснуть, когда ты тут в комнате?» If we make pause 2 it is “я что, должен спать с тобой в одной комнате?”

Sometimes ambiguity is caused by the infinitive construction:

*He went to the US never to return – 1)…на ПМЖ, 2)…и не вернулся, 3)… и ему не суждено уже было вернуться

If we have homogeneous members of the sentence hey may serve as a signal that ambivalence is possible. In English we may have one subject and several predicates.

*Some blame it (decreasing number of cinema-goers) on TV, or on the weather, or bad films or slimmer purses.” – “Люди реже ходят в кино. Одни считают, что виновато ТВ, другие винят погоду, третьи относят это на счет низкого качества фильмов, четвертые винят отощавшие кошельки”.

The translator here resorts to restructuring: one sentence is divided into many sentences.

The construction “as…as” usually presupposes equality, but structures “as much… as, so much… as, any more… than, much… less” are ambivalent, because they can render equality and in some cases they are used for emphasis. So these constructions can be considered as intensifiers, which means a word, adverbial or adjectival in function, which has a typically heightening effect on the meaning of another element in the sentence. Some structures of this kind have even become phraseological units.

*There isn’t anybody as polite as robbers.” – разбойники – самый вежливый народ.

*She paid all the housekeeping expenses and he never as much as contributed a farthing piece. – она оплачивала все домашние расходы, а он не вносил ни гроша.

The construction “no more… than” only formally can be used as a signal of equality, in fact it is often used as an intensifier.

*I am not getting a job no more than you are getting your hardware store back.”

The same is true for the structure “as if”. It is often serves as an intensifier.

*My eyes were full as if I was going to tumble down. – слезы застилали мне глаза, и я почувствовал, что вот-вот упаду.

Syntactic mood.

Syntactic mood can be understood in forms of 3 sentence types:

- Declarative

- Interrogative

- Imperative

If we turn to pragmatic factors we find that for indirect speech acts the translation of syntactic mood can be an indirect one.

* Can you finish your thesis? – can be considered as a request

* Will you belt up? – can be considered as a must

The form of the sentence causes ambiguity. We can rely upon the punctuation, which serves as an indicator of syntactic mood. In spoken language syntactic mood is corresponded to stress and intonation. It is also important to take into consideration tag questions, which consist of a declarative and a shortened interrogative clause.