English non-finite participial clauses as seen through their Czech counterparts

Abstract

Based on the data from a parallel English-Czech corpus, the present study offers an analysis of 600 English V-ing participial clauses through their Czech translation correspondences, divisible into less and more explicit types. The less explicit Czech counterparts highlight the analytic character of English either in cases where the translation counterpart is synthetic (i.e. merging the meaning of the finite verb and the participle into one verb) or where the participle resembles, in its function, a preposition. The more explicit (i.e. finite-clause) Czech counterparts attest to the backgrounded information status and semantic indeterminacy of the English participial clause. Instead of an expected tendency to render their meaning in Czech by a similar, syntactically subordinated, structure, namely dependent clauses, it is the simple coordination that appears to represent best the semantic indeterminacy of the relation of the English participial clause to its superordinate element.