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Article published In: Converging paradigms in contrastive and translation studies: Crosslinguistic corpus perspectives
Edited by Silvia Bernardini and Adriano Ferraresi
[Languages in Contrast 23:2] 2023
► pp. 133–160

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On similative demonstratives in Czech and English

Evidence from corpora

ORCiD logo with link | Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic
ORCiD logo with link | Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic
Published online: 2 October 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lic.00026.jan
Abstract
This paper is a contrastive corpus-based study of similative demonstratives, a major means of expressing similarity and ad-hoc categorization. It explores the divergence between the Czech demonstrative takový and its English dictionary equivalent such in their “atypical” – extended, or non-phoric – uses. Through the triangulation of comparable fiction texts, their translation (from a bidirectional translation corpus) and spoken language data (from comparable monolingual corpora of spoken English and Czech), converging evidence is found of the development of discourse functions of the Czech takový which shows an increase in its intersubjectivity, not attested with such, but common with the English type nouns sort, kind, and type. These cross-linguistic parallels are not only relevant for current discussions on intersubjectivity and intersubjectification, but they also call for further research on general patterns of ad-hoc categorization.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Demonstratives, similarity, and ad-hoc categorization
    • 1.2Grammaticalization of similative demonstratives
    • 1.3(Inter)Subjectivity of similative demonstratives
  • 2.Data and method
  • 3.Such and takový in fiction
    • 3.1Syntax and discourse functions of such and takový in fiction
    • 3.2Translation correspondences of such and takový
      • 3.2.1Such and its Czech translations
      • 3.2.2Takový and its English translations
    • 3.3Summary: Such and takový in fiction
  • 4.Such and takový in spoken corpora
    • 4.1Discourse functions of such in spoken English (BNC2014)
    • 4.2Discourse functions of takový in spoken Czech (ORAL2013)
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (33)
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