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Katalin .

Kiss English participles and their Hungarian equivalents Review

The paper examines participles in English and their equivalents in Hungarian translations based on the corpora from Salingers Franny and Zooey and Katzs Mentalism in Linguistics as compared to participles in Hungarian as in Drys Niki, egy kutya trtnete. The aim of this comparison is to prepare teachers of English for Hungarian second language learners errors, oversage and underusage of certain forms resulting from interference. . Kiss uses participle in the traditional sense, that is to denote non-finite V phrases (-ing and ed forms) functioning adverbially or adjectivally (. Kiss, :63). In this definition she does not differentiate between participles and gerunds, a fact which she motivates with the following arguments. First, she claims that the different ing forms form a continuum, with participles at one extreme, and gerunds at the other and it is difficult to draw a dividing line between, and such division is likely to be based on an arbitrary choice. Second, occurrence with a premodifier and the function of the V+ing, the criteria used for distinguishing between gerunds and participles, does not always help to make the distinction. Third, formally identical structures with different functions should not be assigned to different classes. . Kiss gives a detailed description of English participles according to their function, namely predicative participles: He looks frightening, premodifying participles: a frightening face, postmodifying participles: a face frightening everybody, adverbial participles: He had a revolver in his hand, frightening everyone, and participles standing as object complements: He found the baby frightened. (. Kiss, :66-7). . Kiss claims that the predicative participle is a subject complement linked to the subject copula be and also other verbs like look, seem, sound, get, become etc. She also adds that it is difficult to decide which predicative V+ing and V+ed are participial subject complements possessing both verbal and adjectival properties and which are heads of complex finite verb phrases or as full adjectives which thus should be excluded from the analysis (.Kiss : 69). Moreover, the dividing line between participles and adjectives in ing is extremely difficult to draw, if it can be preceded by very it can be considered to be adjective, yet non-gradable adjectives cannot be modified by very, plus words that have no corresponding verbs are adjectives (e.g. unthinking) (.Kiss : 70-1). The comparison of participles in the corpora showed that the Hungarian equivalents were heterogenenous: 6 participia imperfecta, 1 participium perfectum, the other 64 cases do not display regularity (adjectives or participles with an adverbial suffix). (.Kiss : 71). In the case of premodifying participles the question how to distinguish them from full adjectives ending in ing arises. The Hungarian equivalents of premodifying participles in the

corpora are more homogeneous than the equivalents of predicative participles; out of 93 Hungarian equivalents: in 50 cases the Hungarian equivalents are participles as well, the H participia imperfecta correspond to English ing participles, while the Hungarian participia perfecta corresponds to English ed participles While predicative participles and premodifying participles behave like adjectives, ostmodifying participles have non-finite relative clause-like character, and they are often ambiguous, the sentence I noticed a man hidden behind the bushes. can be interpreted in two ways: I noticed that a man was hidden behind the bushes. I noticed a man who was hidden behind the bushes.

o a great majority of them have a complex structure: supplemented by predicates, objects, adverbials, etc.->40% are translated through clauses (mainly relative) o Hungarian equivalents: 21 clauses, 18 participles, 15 other 1. adverbial participles o fall into several subclasses according to their function and structure: clauses of time, reason, concession, purpose, result, comparison o proportion of clauses and adverbial verbalia among H equivalents of English participial adverbial clauses: clause P Adv Salinger and Katz 80% 12.7% Dry 38.2% 41.1% 2. participles standing as object complements o appears in low numbers but includes important patterns Conclusion: results do not support the statement of Quirk that participial constructions as a means of syntactic compression are less favoured in colloquial than in learned prose. the proportion of participles seems to depend rather on the quantity of action in the text. Formal classification of English participles . Kiss provides the following division: Active Simple Perfect taking Having taken Passive Full Being taken Having been taken Short taken

o present participle and past participle may be misleading: do not express tense; present part. used for simultaneous actions; the past part. is a short variant of both the simple passive participle and the perfect passive participle. 1) Adjectival participles (participial-mellknvi igenevek) combine the characteristics of a V and Adj. a) antecedent participles (participial perfecta) nekelt b) simultaneous participles (participial imperfecta) - /; nekl c) posterior participles (participial instantia)- and/end; neklend

2) Adverbial participles (adverbia verbalia-hatrozi igenevek) combine the characteristics of V and Adv. a) antecedent participles (adverbial verbalia perfecta) vn/vn, -va/ve; nekelvn, nekelve b) simultaneous participles (adverbial verbalia imperfecta) va/ve nekelve Confrontation of Hungarian and English participles The system of Hungarian and English participles 1) adjectival participles a) Participia perfecta and participium imperfectum o the partcipium perfectum concides mainly with the E passive perfect participle (V-ed), the participium imperfectum coincides wihte the E active simple participle (V-ing) o the participium perfectum normally expresses and action antecedent to the action denoted by the finite V of the sentence. adjectival participles active passive P imp -nekl gyerek a song being sung a singing child P perf polcon tartott knyvek books (being) kept on a self Object+ P perf P perf sokat ltott frfi aszalt szilva a man who has seen a lot dried plum

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2) adverbial participles active passive Durative, intransitive durative, transitive V+ -va/ve V+ -va/ve mosolyogva srtve, ldzve smiling (being) offended (being) pursued perfect, instantaneous perfect/instantaneous intrans. V+ -va/ve, -vn/vn trans. V + -va/ve, -vn/vn megkrkezve, megrkezvn sszetrve, sszetrvn having arrived having been broken a hrt meghallva having heard the news The structure of English and Hungarian participal phrases a. premodifying participles: not freely complementable in E; they can have an adverbial of time, degree or manner e.g. her still burning cigarette a mg mindig g cigarettavge b. postmodifying participles: supplemented by subject complement, object, object+object complement and adverbials c. adverbium verbale: H prefers clauses to adverbial participles

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Predictable errors and pedagogical considerations 1. Structural errors a. predicative participles o H equivalents of most E linking Vs-> adverbium verbale or a participium imperfectum with adverbial suffix o expected sentences: It sounds shockingly. (Ijeszten hangzik) He looks surprisedly. (Meglepettnek ltszik; Meglepetten nz ki.) ->occurs rarely b. premodifying and postmodifying participles o in H noun phrase modifying participles have a prehead position o in E precede the noun phrase only where they are not complemented or merely and adverbial. o expected error: modifying participial construction in front of the N phrase in E * the football playing children c. adverbial participles: errors concerning the subject of the adverbial clause e.g. * Being warm, we took an excursion. d. participles standing as object complements: no analogous construction in H-> learners may have difficulties 2 functional errors: in H no clear simultaneous-perfect opposition -> H learners have difficulty in understanding the role of simple perfect participles, they tend to attribute a present tense reference to simple participle and a past tense reference to the perfect participle 3stylistic problems: it is desirable for learners to use synonymous E constructions in approximately the same proportion as native speakers do teacher cannot teach this.

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