Translation counterparts as markers of meaning

The paper explores the applicability of a method of contrastive corpus-supported research which relies on the use of salient translation counterparts as markers of a particular meaning. The markers are identified among the Czech counterparts of the individual semantic sub-classes of English copular verbs, and subsequently used to trace other, structurally diverse, English constructions which convey the same meaning as the copulas in question (constructions expressing epistemic stance or resultative meaning). Since the repertoire of copular verbs is much narrower in Czech than in English, the translation counterparts display a variety of formally divergent means rendering into Czech the meanings conveyed by the English copulas. The overt counterparts which are closely associated with a particular semantic group of copulas, and structurally as well as semantically sufficiently unambiguous, can serve as markers. Although the method has its limitations, where practicable it may facilitate searching for function in a corpus. The material is drawn from the multilingual parallel corpus InterCorp.