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Katalin . Kiss

English participles and their Hungar ian equivalents

Review

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The paper examines participles in English and their equivalents in Hungarian

translations based on the corpora from SalingersFranny and Zooey and KatzsMentalism in

Linguistics as compared to participles in Hungarian as in DrysNiki, 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 (-ingand 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 ingforms 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 apremodifier 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 ingis 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 ingarises. The Hungarian equivalents of premodifying participles in the

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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 ingparticiples, while the Hungarianparticipia

perfecta corresponds to English edparticiples

While predicative participles and premodifying participles behave like adjectives,

ostmodifying participles have non-finite relative clause-like character, and they are often

ambiguous, the sentenceI 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 other1. 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 participialadverbial clauses:

clause P AdvSalinger and Katz 80% 12.7%Dry 38.2% 41.1%

2. participles standing as object complementso appears in low numbers but includes important patternsConclusion: results do not support the statement of Quirk that participial constructions as ameans 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 PassiveFull ShortSimple taking Being taken takenPerfect Having taken Having been 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) - /; neklc) posterior participles (participial instantia)- and/end; neklend

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Predictable errors and pedagogical considerations

1. Structural errorsa. predicative participleso H equivalents of most E linking Vs-> adverbium verbale or a participium imperfectum

with adverbial suffixo expected sentences:It sounds shockingly. (Ijeszten hangzik)He looks surprisedly. (Meglepettnek ltszik; Meglepetten nz ki.)->occurs rarely

b. premodifying and postmodifying participleso in H noun phrase modifying participles have a prehead positiono 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 childrenc. adverbial participles: errors concerning the subject of the adverbial clausee.g. *Being warm, we took an excursion.d. participles standing as object complements: no analogous construction in H-> learners

may have difficulties2 functional errors: in H no clear simultaneous-perfect opposition -> H learners havedifficulty 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 participle3stylistic problems: it is desirable for learners to use synonymous E constructions inapproximately the same proportion as native speakers do teacher cannot teach this.