Cover not available

In:Time in Languages, Languages in Time
Edited by Anna Čermáková, Thomas Egan, Hilde Hasselgård and Sylvi Rørvik
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 101] 2021
► pp. 95–128

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

Translating verbal tenses between tensed and tenseless languages

A contrastive study of multilingual corpora

 | University of Geneva
 | Sun Yat-sen University
Published online: 17 September 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.101.05gri
Abstract
In this chapter, we investigate how verbal tenses are translated into a tenseless language (Chinese) and whether the translation of temporal information from a tenseless language into tensed languages (English and French) is influenced by the formal structure of the source language. The results of our corpus analysis show that English and French verbal tenses like the Present Perfect and Imparfait are not systematically translated into Mandarin using an aspectual marker. We find that present-time French and English verbal tenses are most often translated into Mandarin using non-marked VPs, past-time verbal tenses using aspectual, temporal markers and linguistically non-marked VPs, and future-time verbal tenses using temporal markers. These patterns also apply for the translation of Mandarin VPs into French and English.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Tense and grammatical aspect from a cross-linguistic perspective
    • 2.1English Simple Past, Past Progressive and Present Perfect
    • 2.1French Passé Composé, Passé Simple and Imparfait
    • 2.3Expressing time and the role of (grammatical) aspect in Mandarin
  • 3.Empirical study
    • 3.1Hypotheses and predictions
    • 3.2Corpora, coding system and analysis
    • 3.3Results
      • 3.3.1Frequencies of verbal tenses in French and in English
      • 3.3.2Frequencies of aspectual markers in Mandarin
      • 3.3.3Translation of verbal tenses from English and French into Mandarin
      • 3.3.4Translation of verb phrases from Mandarin into English and French
    • 3.4Discussion of the results
      • 3.4.1Frequencies of verbal tenses in English and French
      • 3.4.2Frequencies of aspectual markers in Mandarin
      • 3.4.3Translation of English and French verbal tenses into Mandarin
      • 3.4.4Translation of Mandarin verb phrases into English and French
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (61)
References
Baker, Mona. 1993. Corpus linguistics and translation studies: Implications and applications. In Text and Technology: In Honour of John Sinclair, Mona Baker, Gill Francis & Elena Tognini-Bonelli (eds), 233–253. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Berthonneau, Anne-Marie & Kleiber, Georges. 1993. Pour une nouvelle approche de l’imparfait: L’imparfait, un temps anaphorique méronomique. Langages 112: 55–73. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blücher, Kolbjørn. 1974. L’imperfetto italiano è veramente un imperfetto? In Actes du XIIIe Congrès International de Linguistique et Philologie Romanes, 397–402. Québec: Les Presses de l’Université Laval. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bohnemeyer, Jürgen & Swift, Mary. 2001. Default aspect: The semantic interaction of aspectual viewpoint and telicity. In Proceedings from the Perspectives on Aspect. Utrecht: Institute of Linguistics.
. 2004. Event realization and default aspect. Linguistics and Philosophy 27(3): 263–296. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chao, Yuen Ren. 1968. A Grammar of Spoken Chinese. Berkeley CA: University of California Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Comrie, Bernard. 1976. Aspect. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1985. Tense. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dahl, Östen. 1985. Tense and Aspect Systems. Oxford: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dahl, Östen & Velupillai, Viveka. 2008. Perfective/imperfective aspect. In World Atlas of Language Structures Online, Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds). Munich: Max Planck Digital Library. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dyvik, Helge. 1998. A translational basis for semantics. In Corpora and Cross-linguistic Research: Theory, Method and Case Studies, Stig Johansson & Signe Oksefjell (eds), 51–86. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Elsness, Johan. 1997. The Perfect and the Preterite in Contemporary and Earlier English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grevisse, Maurice. 1980. Le bon usage, 11e édn. Bruxelles: De Boeck Duculot. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grisot, Cristina. 2017. Tense, grammatical aspect and subjectivity: An experimental study using inter-annotator agreement rates and corpus-based data. Corpus Pragmatics 2(1): 27–55. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. Cohesion, Coherence and Time from an Experimental Corpus Pragmatics Perspective. Cham: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Guillemin-Flescher, Jacqueline. 1981. Syntaxe comparée du français et de l’anglais: problèmes de traduction. Paris: Éditions Ophrys. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gvozdanović, Jadranka. 2012. Verbal aspect. In The Oxford Handbook of Tense and Aspect, Robert Binnck (ed.), 752–780. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harris, Martin (1982). The “past simple” and “present perfect” in Romance. In Studies in the Romance Verb, Martin Harris & Nigel Vincent (eds), 42–70. London: Croom Helm. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
House, Juliane. 2018. Translation: The Basics. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Huddleston, Rodney D. & Pullum, Geoffrey K. 2006. A Student’s Introduction to English Grammar, 2nd edn. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kamp, Hans & Rohrer, Christian. 1983. Tense in texts. In Meaning, Use and Interpretation of Language, Rainer Bäuerle, Christoph Schwarze & Arnim von Stechow (eds), 250–269. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kleiber, Georges. 2003. Entre les deux mon cœur balance ou l’imparfait entre aspect et anaphore. Langue Française 138: 8–19. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Klein, Wolfgang. 1994. Time in Language. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Klein, Wolfgang, Li, Ping & Hendriks, Henriette. 2000. Aspect and assertion in Mandarin Chinese. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 18(4): 723–770. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey & Svartvik, Jan. 2002. A Communicative Grammar of English, 3rd edn. New York NY: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Li, Charles N. & Thompson, Sandra A. 1981. Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar. Berkeley CA: University of California Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Li, Wendan. 2012. Temporal and aspectual references in Mandarin Chinese. Journal of Pragmatics 44(14): 2045–2066. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lin, Jo-Wang. 2003. Temporal reference in Mandarin Chinese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 12(3): 259–311. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2006. Time in a language without tense: The case of Chinese. Journal of Semantics 23(1): 1–53. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. Tenselessness. In The Oxford Handbook of Tense and Aspect, Robert I. Binnick (ed.), 669–695. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lin, Tzong-Hong Jonah. 2015. Tense in Mandarin Chinese sentences. Syntax 18(3): 320–342. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shuxiang, Lü. 1956. Zhongguo wenfa yaolue (A Concise Chinese Grammar). Beijing: The Commercial Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mangione, Louis & Dingzuan, Li. 1993. A compositional analysis of - guo and - le. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 21(1): 65–122. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martin, Robert. 1971. Temps et aspect. Essai sur l’emploi des temps narratifs en moyen français. Paris: Klincksieck. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mauranen, Anna & Kujamäki, Pekka. 2004. Translation Universals: Do They Exist? [Benjamins Translation Library 48]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Molendijk, Arie L. 1990. Le passé simple et l’imparfait: Une approche reichenbachienne. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Noël, Dirk. 2003. Translations as evidence for semantics: An illustration. Linguistics 41(4): 757–785. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey & Svartvik, Jan. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Radden, Günter & Dirven, René. 2007. Cognitive English Grammar. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Reichenbach, Hans. 1947. Elements of Symbolic Logic. New York NY: McMillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ross, Claudia. 1990. Resultative verb compounds. Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association 25(3): 61–83. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
de Saussure, Louis. 2003. Temps et pertinence: Éléments de pragmatique cognitive du temps. Bruxelles: De Boeck Duculot. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shaer, Benjamin. 2003. Toward the tenseless analysis of a tenseless language. In Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on the Semantics of Under-Represented Languages in the Americas [SULA 2], Jan Andersson, Paula Menéndez-Benito & Adam Werle (eds), 139–156. Amherst MA: GLSA. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shi, Mimi. 2011. A Corpus-based Contrastive Approach for the Analysis of Tense and Aspect in Translation from English into Mandarin Chinese. PhD dissertation, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster.
Smith, Carlota S. 2003. Modes of Discourse: The Local Structure of Texts. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2008. Time with and without tense. In Time and Modality, Jacqueline Guéron & Jacqueline Lecarme (eds), 227–249. Berlin: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Smith, Carlota S. & Erbaugh, Mary S. 2005. Temporal interpretation in Mandarin Chinese. Linguistics 43(4): 713–756. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Squartini, Mario & Bertinetto, Pier- Marco. 2000. The simple and compound past in Romance languages. In Tense and Aspect in the Languages of Europe, Östen Dahl (ed.), 403–440. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sun, Hongyuan. 2014. Temporal Construals of Bare Predicates in Mandarin Chinese. PhD dissertation, Leiden University.
Sun, Juan & Grisot, Cristina. 2020. Expressing temporal reference in Mandarin: A quantitative study using translation corpora. Corpus Pragmatics 4: 207–241. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
de Swart, Henriette. 2012. Verbal aspect. In The Oxford Handbook of Tense and Aspect, Robert Binnck (ed.), 752–780. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sybesma, Rint. 2007. Whether we tense-agree overtly or not. Linguistic Inquiry 38(3): 580–587. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tasmowski-De Ryck, Liliane. 1985. L’imparfait avec et sans rupture. Langue Française 67: 59–77. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thompson, Sandra A. 1973. Resultative verb compounds in Mandarin Chinese: A case for lexical rules. Language 49(2): 361–379. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tonhauser, Judith. 2015. Cross-linguistic temporal reference. Annual Review of Linguistics 1(1): 129–154. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vendler, Zeno. 1957. Verbs and times. The Philosophical Review 66(2): 143–160. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Verkuyl, Henk. 1999. Aspectual Issues: Studies on Time and Quantity. Stanford CA: CSLI. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vetters, Carl 1996. Temps, aspect et narration. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wagner, Robert Léon & Pinchon, Jacqueline. 1962. Grammaire du français classique et moderne. Paris: Hachette. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Weinrich, Harald. 1973. Le temps. Paris: Seuil. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Xiao, Richard & McEnery, Tony. 2004. Aspect in Mandarin Chinese: A Corpus-based Study [Studies in Language Companion Series 73]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Sun, Juan, F. Neveu, S. Prévost, A. Montébran, A. Steuckardt, G. Bergounioux, G. Merminod & G. Philippe
2024. L’acquisition du passé composé et de l’imparfait chez les apprenants sinophones en français langue étrangère : influence de l’aspect lexical et difficultés d’apprentissage. SHS Web of Conferences 191 ► pp. 07009 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 1 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue