scholarly journals Translating linguistic time

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tal Goldfajn
Keyword(s):  
Classical Problem ◽  
Hard Core ◽  
Biblical Hebrew ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
Tense And Aspect ◽  
Single Form ◽  
Modern Hebrew ◽  
Major Trend ◽  
Original Story

If Sartre is right and the tense of a text holds the key to its special strangeness (1947), how does this strangeness fare in translation? What can we learn from looking at the translation of grammatical tense and aspect in narrative texts in different languages? It is often simply assumed that translating grammatical cate gories of time in languages - because it has to do with what is considered the hard core of language, i.e. the grammar as opposed to the lexicon of the language - mainly involves mere linguistic constraints. Jakobson ’s famous motto (1987: 433) - “languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they can convey”- would therefore suffice to tell the whole story about the way in which linguistic time is translated. This paper argues, however, that this is not the whole story: it argues that the choice of tense in translation is more than just a grammatical agenda, and may actually reflect a number of different commitments. Section 2 examines some intriguing tense changes in the translation of children ’s literature: it discusses the motivations behind these changes and shows that by changing the ‘how’ of the original story through the tense choice the entire subjective perspective of the text is altered. Section 3 identifies a few patterns in the translation of past distinctions in Modern Hebrew. It suggests that in contrast to the more diversified means of translating aspectual meanings in previous decades, a major trend in the last decade or so has been to reduce all past sphere distinctions essentially to one single form, i.e. the simple past tense. Finally section 4 deals with the classical problem regarding the Biblical Hebrew tenses and their translation; it shows that the translation of the biblical verbs may be strongly determined by the different linguistic ideas (and even systematic theories) the translators adopt regarding the Biblical Hebrew tenses. In all these cases then, we observe that the translation of temporal meanings involves not only a commitment to specific temporal interpretations but also a commitment to more subtle conceptions of subjectivity in translation, of literary conventions and linguistic ideas.

Notes on the shift from accusative constructions to prepositional phrases in Hebrew and Arabic

1981 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-14
Author(s):  
Naphtali Kinberg
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Hebrew ◽  
Semitic Languages ◽  
Prepositional Phrases ◽  
Modern Hebrew ◽  
Accusative Constructions ◽  
North Western

In an article published in the early sixties, M. Bogaert shows certain groups of verbs which in Biblical Hebrew (as well as in other north-western Semitic languages) may govern verbal suffixes instead of ‘dative’prepositions. This phenomenon is called by him ‘non-accusative verbal suffixes’.In his article ‘'et = ’el “to, towards” in Biblical Hebrew', S. Izre'el argues that the particle 'et sometimes occurs in contexts that elsewhere require the prepositions 'el ‘to, towards’ or 'im ‘with’. He concludes thatwith 'et is a preposition which in Modern Hebrew may be rendered by 'im or 'el, similar to the Hebrew preposition bƏ- which is sometimes translated into English as ‘in’ and at other times as ‘at’, according to the context.

The Impact of Contact Languages on the Grammaticalization of the Modern Hebrew Superlative

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 271-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yael Reshef
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Hebrew ◽  
Comparison Class ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Modern Hebrew ◽  
Positive Adjective ◽  
The Impact

Modern Hebrew grammatical constructions include a tripartite paradigm of degree comparison consisting of the positive adjective, the comparative, and the superlative. Such a paradigm did not exist in classical Hebrew, and the expression of the superlative in both Biblical Hebrew and Rabbinic Hebrew required reference to a comparison class by means of a noun. Based on an examination of textual evidence from the initial phases of the formation of Modern Hebrew, this article traces the emergence of the modern superlative constructions and evaluates the role of contact languages in the process.

scholarly journals Intralingual intertemporal translation as a relevant category in translation studies

Target ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 445-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hilla Karas
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Old French ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Biblical Hebrew ◽  
Public Discussion ◽  
The Public ◽  
Separate Category ◽  
Modern Hebrew ◽  
Relevant Category ◽  
And Behaviors

Abstract This article argues for intralingual intertemporal translations as a separate category within the field of translation studies. Not only do these translations seem to have common characteristics and behaviors, but it is precisely their particularities that make them a key to understanding more ‘typical’ translations. Two main sets of examples will serve as demonstration: translations from Old French into Middle and Modern French, and a Modern Hebrew translation of the Old Testament, originally written in Biblical Hebrew, as well as the public discussion following its publication.

Remarks on rhythmic stress in Modern Hebrew

1982 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shmuel Bolozky
Keyword(s):  
Initial Stress ◽  
Biblical Hebrew ◽  
Modern Hebrew ◽  
Final Stress

In Biblical Hebrew, the tendency for rhythmic stress was primarily manifest in stress retraction, which moved word-final stress to the preceding syllable so as to avoid ‘stress clash’ with an immediately following word-initial stress, subject to certain restrictions. It was discussed in detail by the traditional grammarians of Hebrew; recent generative accounts include Prince (1975) and McCarthy (1979). In Modern Hebrew, the tendency for rhythmic stress can be realized in a variety of ways, of which stress retraction is by no means the commonest.

scholarly journals Tense and aspect in sentence interpretation by children with specific language impairment

2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 395-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
LAURENCE B. LEONARD ◽  
PATRICIA DEEVY
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Matching Task ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Tense And Aspect ◽  
Scene Matching ◽  
The Past ◽  
Present Progressive

ABSTRACTThe aim of this study was to determine whether children with specific language impairment (SLI) are sensitive to completion cues in their comprehension of tense. In two experiments, children with SLI (ages 4 ; 1 to 6 ; 4) and typically developing (TD) children (ages 3 ; 5 to 6 ; 5) participated in a sentence-to-scene matching task adapted from Wagner (2001). Sentences were in either present or past progressive and used telic predicates. Actions were performed twice in succession; the action was either completed or not completed in the first instance. In both experiments, the children with SLI were less accurate than the TD children, showing more difficulty with past than present progressive, regardless of completion cues. The TD children were less accurate with past than present progressive requests only when the past actions were incomplete. These findings suggest that children with SLI may be relatively insensitive to cues pertaining to event completion in past tense contexts.

Zero verb marking in Sranan

2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Astrid De Wit ◽  
Frank Brisard
Keyword(s):  
Native Speaker ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Perfective Aspect ◽  
Tense And Aspect ◽  
Lexical Aspect ◽  
The Past ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
Present Tense ◽  
Basic Level

In the Surinamese creole language Sranan, verbs in finite clauses that lack overt TMA-marking are often considered to be ambiguous between past and present interpretations (depending on the lexical aspect of the verb involved) or analyzed as having a perfective value. We claim that these verbs are in fact zero-marked, and we investigate the various uses of this zero expression in relation to context and lexical aspect on the basis of corpus data and native speaker elicitations. It is shown that existing analyses do not cover and unify all the various uses of the construction. We propose, as an alternative, to regard the zero form as present perfective marker, whereby tense and aspect are conceived of as fundamentally epistemic categories, in line with Langacker (1991). This combination of present tense and perfective aspect, which is regarded as infelicitous in typological studies of tense and aspect (cf. the ‘present perfective paradox’, Malchukov 2009), gives rise to the various interpretations associated with zero. However, in all of its uses, zero still indicates that, at the most basic level, a situation belongs to the speaker’s conception of ‘immediate reality’ (her domain of ‘inclusion’). This basic ‘presentness’ distinguishes zero from the past-tense marker ben, which implies dissociation.

scholarly journals Real tense and real aspect in mirativity

2015 ◽  
pp. 347
Author(s):  
Teresa Torres Bustamante
Keyword(s):  
Past Tense ◽  
Tense And Aspect ◽  
The Past ◽  
Current State ◽  
Time Argument ◽  
Modal Base ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Lifetime Effects ◽  
Usual Interpretation

The goal of this paper is an account of the role of tense and aspect in mirative constructions in Spanish. I propose that the past tense morphology and the imperfect/perfect morphology in Spanish miratives contribute their standard meanings to the semantics of mirativity. I define mirativity as the clash between the speaker’s previous beliefs and the current state of affairs asserted by the proposition. I propose a M operator that relates the speaker’s beliefs and the proposition by ranking the worlds in which the proposition doesn’t hold in the speaker’s previous beliefs as better ones. The past tense is interpreted outside the proposition, and constitutes the time argument of the modal base (doxastic domain). Aspect gets its usual interpretation in the proposition but also in the alternative propositions that order the worlds in the modal base. This way, differences regarding the imperfect mirative and the pluperfect one are accounted for. Finally, the paper also discusses stative miratives, which apparently challenge part of the analysis. I claim that these are not counter examples, but rather confirmation of the analysis, once we account for the interaction between miratives, statives and lifetime effects.

scholarly journals Značenje i prednost proučavanja židovske Biblije na biblijskom hebrejskom jeziku

2019 ◽  
Vol XVII (2) ◽  
pp. 393-393
Author(s):  
Agnes E. DaDon ◽  
Kotel DaDon
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
School Curriculum ◽  
Biblical Hebrew ◽  
General Introduction ◽  
Original Language ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Rabbinical Literature ◽  
Modern Hebrew ◽  
Many Sources

In this article the authors analyse the importance of the study of the Old Testament in its original language, Biblical Hebrew. The first part of the article consists of a general introduction followed by the explanation of the main linguistic differences between Biblical and Modern Hebrew, as one of the factors contributing to the difficulty of understanding the Bible even for native Israelis. This part ends with a brief description of the first Modern Hebrew translation of the Bible and the intentions behind this translation, as presented by the translator and the publisher. The central part of this article discusses the following issues: the need of a translation of the Bible from Biblical Hebrew into modern spoken Hebrew, the importance of the Bible and the Biblical text, continues with a general introduction to translation, provides arguments in favour and against the translation of the text from Biblical Hebrew into Modern spoken Hebrew or other languages. The end of this part exposes the difficulties involved in Bible translation, providing examples of major problems in the translation of the Bible. In this context, the background of Torah translations into Aramaic is explained. Finally, in the conclusion, the authors give their recommendations for the school curriculum in Croatia, based on their experiences as teachers and parents. In their work, the authors use many sources from the rabbinical literature since the Talmudic time through the Middle Ages until modern times. Much of this literature is translated into Croatian from Hebrew and Aramaic for the first time by the authors.

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