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Michaela Martinková Palacký University, Olomouc Czech Republic

I wish you/someone/people would or m ělo by se : A corpus based study of sentences with wish and their Czech equivalents UCCTS2010, 28th July 2010, Edge Hill University, UK. Michaela Martinková Palacký University, Olomouc Czech Republic.

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Michaela Martinková Palacký University, Olomouc Czech Republic

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  1. I wish you/someone/people wouldor mělo by se:A corpus based study of sentences withwish and their Czech equivalentsUCCTS2010, 28th July 2010, EdgeHill University, UK Michaela Martinková Palacký University, Olomouc Czech Republic

  2. My major objective in thispresentationis to investigatethe status ofphrases withwishwhen complementedby a finiteclause, through a closeanalysisofCzechequivalentsof these sentences in a paralleltranslation corpus. A more generalquestion: To what extent can a systematic study oftranslationsreveal facts about a certain language phenomenon we would have failed to notice otherwise? Corporaused: Preliminary and any supplementary research done on the BNC, then InterCorp

  3. InterCorp http://ucnk.ff.cuni.cz/intercorp/ parallel corpus ofCzechand 22 languageswithCzech as the pivot language developedat Charles University Prague about 50 millionwords English-CzechandCzech-Englishcomponent English as a sourcelanguage 25 texts, mostly fiction Project Syndicate English as a targetlanguage 7 novelsandoneacademic text

  4. Preliminary research

  5. Wish complementationbasics Quirk et al (1985) list wish [V]among several groups of verbs according to its complementation: monotransitive (B), complex transitive (C) and ditransitive (D): B3 those complemented by a finite clause I wish (that) she were here. (Q 1183) B6 those complemented by a subjectless infinitive clause Do you wish to comment on that? [BNC HVH 85] B8 those complemented by to-infinitive clause (with subject) Do you wish me to stay? [BNC BMN 2099] C1 those complemented by an adjective phrase as object complement Who had reason to wish her ill, then? [BNC AB9 1572] C2 those complemented by a ‘noun phrase as object complement’ I have often wished myself a millionaire. (Q 1199) D 1 those complemented by noun phrases as both indirect and direct object: They wished him good luck (Q 1209)

  6. What is the frequency of theabove-mentionedtypes of complementation ofwishfor individual personal pronouns as subjectsofwish? BNC-basedanalysis More specifically, due to thesizeofthe BNC,  whatisthetotalnumberoftokensofindividualpersonalpronouns as subjectsofwish  whatisthenumberofto-infinitive complementsofwishforindividualpersonalpronounsubjectsofwish  whatisthenumberoffiniteclausecomplementsofwishforindividualpersonalpronounsubjectsofwish

  7. High percentage of complementation by finite clauses after singular personal pronouns, more specifically, high frequency of the phrases I wish I wished she wished he wished What is the distribution of personal pronouns as subjects of the complementing clauses after these phrases?

  8. Frequencies of personal pronouns as subjects of finite clauses complementing I wish, I wished, she wished, he wished in the BNC The subject of the complementing finite clause is most likely to be the same pronoun as the subject of wish.

  9. Phonological reductions of the phrases with wish There are 58 tokens of Wish at the beginning of the sentence followed by a clause in the BNC, that is, with the subject (I) omitted. 34 of the 58 tokens were found in spoken language Examples: Wish you boys would make your minds up! [BNC KD5 8889] Wish he'd make his mind up [BNC KBW 13759] Wish I could find my glasses she said. [BNC KBD 7129]

  10. The main clause status of the phrase with wish is thus open to argument. What about the dependent clause status ofthefiniteclausecomplementingI wishandI/he/shewished? That complementizer is often omitted.

  11. Pseudoclefting: Can these‘dependent finite clauses’ be pseudoclefted? What I wish [be] CLAUSE was not found in the BNC What I/he/she wished [be] CLAUSE was not found in the BNC either, but in Intercorp there is one token: What she wished was that she’ d had a chance to talk to the murdered salesgirl (JohnIrving,A Widow for a Year) Perhaps these finite clauses are not dependent (nominal object) clauses, and phrases with wish are not main clauses.

  12. Suggestion I wishwhencomplemented by a finite clause is not a main clause but rather a modality marker. Do the Czech translations support this thesis? Can the same be said aboutI wished / she wished / he wished?

  13. Distribution of tenses in finite clauses afterI wish in Intercorp (English source texts)

  14. A close analysis reveals that translating phrases with wish when complemented by a finite clause is very far from straightforward and translators seem to be struggling with it. There are 19 different Czech equivalents of the phrase I wish when complemented by a finite clause and 14 different equivalents of such phrases with wished (I/he/she wished) . Concrete data with literal translations into English are provided in the tables in the slides to follow. Though numbers of tokens are sometimes quite low, certain tendencies seem to be there.

  15. Czech equivalents of I wish In the first part of the table I wish is NOT translated by a main clause.

  16. Some notes on I wish … would ‘Would in this position can have volitional colouring: we wish you would come and stay with us. I wish you wouldn’t drink so much. Such remarks often have the force of requests or commands’ (Leech 2004:123) For Searle (1975:64-5) I wish you wouldn’t do that is one of sentences ‘conventionally used in the performance of indirect directives’.

  17. ELT materials: ‘We use I wish… would… when we want something to happen or when we want somebody to do something. The speaker is not happy with the present situation’ (Murphy 1994:80).

  18. Though the subject of the finite clause (which arguably is to express a command) is very often you, that is the Addressee = a direct participant in conversation, it does NOT have to be you…

  19. ať už konečně někdo…. [let finally someone do …] mělo by se … [it should be done] No solution for *I wish anyone/anybody would  this is NOT a non-assertive context!

  20. Wish in the past tense: Finite clauses after I wished, he wished, she wished in Intercorp and their Czech equivalents

  21. Concludingremarks • ThefactthattheI wishconstructionwhenfollowed by a finiteclauseis a modality markerseems to besupported by itsCzechtranslations. Itisoftenthe case thatitis not translated by a mainclause. • Ifthesubjectofthecomplementingclauseisyou(addressee), especiallyfollowed by would, thewhole sentence canhavetheillocutionaryforceof a directiveandmaybetranslatedwith a verb in the imperative form.

  22. b. In one case I wishtranslatestheperiphrastic imperative withthe optative particleať . c. Veryoften, thesomewhatdated optative particlekéž isused in Czechtranslations. d. SentenceswithI wishare oftentranslatedby reducedphrases (stažené výpověďní útvary) in whichthemainclauseiseithercompletelylost (kdyby tak [if only]), reducedinto a particle (už aby[high time]), orparticle-like element (škoda že [pity that]), wherethepredicate verb, and often also the comma separating the ‘main clause’ from the ‘dependent clause’ arelost (je škoda, že[it is a pity that]).

  23. This happens when the complementing finite clauses contain verbs in the past perfect tense, could with the past or even present infinitive (and theoretically also verbs in the past tense). The sentence then has a reversed polarity.

  24. e. Polarity is also reversed in translations of I wish as mrzí mě and je mi líto [I am sorry], which were used if the complementing finite clause contained a verb in past perfect and once also a verb in simple past. After all, there is ‘a negative entailment or presupposition’ (Huddleston and Pullum 2002:1009) for all content clauses complementing wish and reversing the sentence polarity in Czech may be its proof.

  25. II. There is a discrepancy between translations of I wish and clauses with wish in the past tense (I wished, he wished, she wished). Due to the fact that wishes are only reported here, the original illocutionary force is lost, which means that neither imperatives nor optative particles are used in the translations (with one exception of kéž in a translation of arguable quality) .  phrases in which the main clause is entirely lost (kdyby tak) or reduced to a particle (už aby) are not used in the translation of I/he/she wished.

  26. the particle-like expression škoda is never used, as it is closely related to the speaker of the utterance and thus it does not survive reporting, unless the verb be is added and a reporting verb is overtly mentioned, such as in říkala, že je škoda, že(she said that it was a pity that…). • these sentences , however, are avoided in translation, due to the stylistically inappropriate repetition of the conjunction že, which cannot be omitted in Czech. • the verb přát si [to wish] is not used performatively or in the conditional mood but in the past tense, except when a reporting verb is overtly mentioned (also note the inverted commas).

  27.  Phrases translating be sorry are always in the past tense, never in the conditional mood or in the present indicative. A close analysis of translations can thus bring some supporting evidence and reveal facts about a language phenomenon we might have failed to notice otherwise. One note at the end…

  28. Intercorp data: Numbers of wish in English source texts (singular personal pronouns as subjects of wish)

  29. Numbers of wish in English target texts (singular personal pronouns as subjects of wish)

  30. English target texts differ from English source texts as far as the clauses with wish are concerned. • Translators from Czech to English do not perhaps make full use of the phrases with wish, especially where the match is not literal, that is they do not use them to translate sentences with škoda and those with an illocutionary force of directives.

  31. Thank you for your attention.

  32. Selected bibliography Dušková, L. 2006. Mluvnice současné angličtiny na pozadí češtiny. Academia. Grepl, M. a P. Karlík. 1998. Skladba češtiny. Votobia. Huddleston, R., and G. Pullum. 2002. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. CUP. Johansson, S. 2007. Seeing through multilingual corpora. In Facchinetti, R.(ed), Corpus Linguistics 25 Years on. Rodopi. Leech, G. 2004. Meaning and the English Verb. Pearson Education Limited. Mluvnice češtiny (3). Skladba. Praha, Academia 1986 Příruční mluvnice češtiny. 2000. Nakladatelství Lidové noviny. Quirk, R. et al. 1985. Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. Longman. Searle, J. 1975. "Indirect speech acts." In Syntax and Semantics, 3: Speech Acts, ed. P. Cole & J. L. Morgan, pp. 59–82. New York: Academic Press. Czech National Corpus - InterCorp. Institute of the Czech National Corpus FF UK, Praha. Accessible at WWW: http://ucnk.ff.cuni.cz/intercorp/ The British National Corpus, version 2 (BNC World). 2001. Distributed by Oxford University Computing Services on behalf of the BNC Consortium. URL: http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/

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