THINKING ITALIAN TRANSLATION 65

(Spinosa 1990:17) Jill mi ha fatto un cenno con la mano. Ha detto `Okay, vado'. Poi si è sporta verso di me e ha chiesto se ero libero sabato. Le ho detto di sì. Lei ha detto `Magari facciamo qualcosa'. Ho detto `Bene. Ciao'. Ho chiuso la

portiera. Lei è andata via veloce verso la freeway.

(De Carlo 1981:75)

THE SENTENTIAL LEVEL

We can use the lines from `To Autumn' to show how different grammatical arrangements create different assumptions in the listener or reader as regards the communicative purpose of an utterance. Keats's own lines Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; [¼]

are partly an address to Autumn and partly an exclamation about it: the very structure of the utterances leads the listener/reader to expect an expression of wonderment and enthusiasm. A different grammatical arrangement, however, would most likely announce a different communicative purpose. For instance:

Autumn is a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. It is a close bosomfriend of the maturing sun.

This structure announces a more purely informative textÐeven though, in the event, phonic and lexical features do give the utterances something more than simply informative value. In each version, the grammatical arrangement marks the utterances as having a particular communicative purpose, whatever overtones may turn out to be involved. When, as here, one looks at the communicative purpose of a given grammatical arrangement, rather than at the grammatical arrangement in its own right, one is looking at the utterance on the sentential level. On this level are considered sentences. A sentence is defined as a complete, selfcontained and ready-made vehicle for communication: nothing needs to be added before it can be uttered and understood in concrete situations. The starter's command `Go!' is a sentence. So is `No way!' as an expression of refusal or disbelief. (Note that, in this definition, a sentence does not necessarily contain a verb.)

Any text counts on the sentential level as a succession of sentences, each with a built-in communicative purpose. This purpose is usually conveyed by one or more of three features: (1) prosodic features, such as intonation or stress (for example the rising pitch that signals a question in Italian and English); (2) grammatical features, such as sequential focus (for example, `On this level are considered sentences', which puts emphasis on `sentences'); (3) illocutionary particles (for example, the question-forming particle `non è vero', or the particle `ma andiamo', which qualifies an utterance as an expression of scoffing disbelief; illocutionary particles do not fit into syntax properÐtheir function is to tell the listener/reader what affective force the utterance is intended to have).

66 GRAMMATICAL AND SENTENTIAL ISSUES

Thus, in spoken texts, a number of different sentences, marked for different purposes, can be created purely through intonation and stressÐeven though they comprise exactly the same words, in exactly the same order. Here are some examples, adapted from Pittàno (1993:76, 273):

Lui non va a pesca [with falling intonation: statement].

Lui non va a pesca [with rising intonation: question, focusing on whether he is going].

Lui non va a pesca [with fall-rise intonation and stress on `pesca': amazed question, focusing on the activity].

Lui non va a pesca [with low, level intonation: menacing prohibition].

The same five words could be spoken in yet other ways, to express joy, encouragement, despair, and so on.

As these examples suggest, the sentential level of spoken language is extremely rich, fine shades of intonation and stress distinguishing sentences with subtly different nuances. These refinements largely disappear in written texts, mostly because the only ways of conveying intonation and stress in writing are punctuation (usually question mark and exclamation mark) and typography (usually italics, sometimes capitals). These offer far fewer alternatives than the rich nuances of speech. Try saying `Lui non va a pesca' in the four ways described above, and compare the result with the following attempts at achieving the same result in written mode:

Lui non va a pesca.

Lui non va a pesca?

Lui non va a pesca?!

LUI NON VA A PESCA!!

All these written versions can in fact be spoken in a number of ways, each with its own emphases and affective force. Consequently, if punctuation and typography cannot clearly convey the desired nuance, the writer or translator has to fall back on adding explicit information about how the sentences are spoken, as in `she exclaimed in surprise', `she said angrily', and so on.

In translating both oral and written texts, then, the sentential level requires as much care as any other. Sequential focus and illocutionary particles are easier to represent in written texts than prosodic features are; but how to translate them still cannot be taken for granted. Both are generally accompanied by appropriate prosodic features, notably intonation and stress; the translator has to be sure not to introduce inappropriate prosodic features in the TT (as happens in the Bassani examples on pp. 56±7).

As regards sequential focus, something else needs to be remembered: Italian and English differ in how and when they vary word-order. We saw a simple example in comparing `Anch'io sono pittore' and `Io sono anche pittore' (p. 55).