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The Syntactic Level When words change their country, they change their manners .. (Dr. Johnson) 5.1 Introduction As mentioned earlier, the relationship that holds between words is either syntagmatic or paradigmatic. The syntagmatic level is observable throughout the text. We talked about collocation as a syntagmatic relationship. Also on the same level lies grammar which is more concerned with structure. The main difference between collocation (patterns) and structure is that the former is unpredictable whereas the latter is obligatory and largely predictive. (Baker 2000) argued, "structure is always there; patterns are an additional layer. Patterning can therefore concern the recurrence of things which are structural." Lexical information can either be found in dictionaries or through their patterning (i.e. collocation). However, meanings are not found exclusively in the words listed individually in dictionaries. The way words are combined together (i.e. structural behavior) produces meanings that are not transparent in individual words. So the translator should have knowledge of the structure and patterning of both the SL and TL. Structure and linguistic devices play a vital role in determining the phrase or sentence meaning. To see how important the syntactic structure in the process of translation, let us consider the following ironic example. THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 76 In 1970 Israel accepted the UN Resolution 242 which called for 'the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict'. The meaning of the withdrawal clause has been contested. Israel has argued that because the definite article 'the' was not included in the English version of the resolution ('from territories occupied' rather than 'from the territories occupied') it means that the scope of withdrawal was left vague and that Israel did not have to withdraw from all the territories it occupied in the conflict. This is because of the definite article 'the' which was dropped in the TT. Sometimes we may have more than one translation version for a given phrase or sentence in SL. Such phrases or sentences may give the same meaning, i.e., they are semantically equivalent, and only different as a result of word choice or styles. Let us consider the following examples. (1) .رفض املدرس عرض املدرسة The teacher refused the school's offer. The teacher declined the school's offer. The teacher rejected the school's offer. The teacher said no to the school's offer Generally speaking, the three sentences above are semantically equivalent despite changes in the part-of-speech or the sentence structure. To a translator, s/he can select any style which is grammatically correct based on his/her structural preferences, profound knowledge, and/or preciseness. THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 77 5.2 Word Order The way words are arranged in sentences may differ from one language to another. To the translator, languages that share the same word order may be easier in translation than those having different word order. For example, English and French have the same word order, i.e. SVO, but for the translators from English into Arabic and vise versa they should consider the different word orders in the two languages involved. Although we can spot some differences in word order across languages, we can notice that languages share many commonalities.“It appears that certain features of this sort of ordering [of words] are universal, or at least very general, and this is the basis of the translatability of the utterances of one language into those of another; but other features are peculiar to particular cultural traditions of particular areas, with the consequence that the translation of words and sentences relating to such features requires more explanation and circumlocution” (Robins 1964/1989:67). In Arabic, sentence structure is mainly based on diacritics, it is a synthetic language. you can put any word anywhere inside the sentence boundary so long as diacritics are considered. In English, on the other hand, every word has a certain position. Also, we cannot put any word that separates immediate constituents. We cannot separate the S from V or the V from O. Other information should be placed initially or finally. Other Word Order In English, as mentioned above, extranuclear elements in the sentences, i.e. other information, should be placed initially or finally. Actually, there are other ways to start a sentence or clause. 78 THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL A. We can start with “other information” as follows: .انل الفريق هذا املوسم مثانية هزائم متتابعة This term, the team had 8 successive defeats. .يشاهد معظم الناس يف مصر كأس العامل لكرة القدم In Egypt most people watch the football world cup. .شعر أبمل حاد وهو يركل الكرة As he kicked the ball he felt an acute pain in his back. B. We can start with the object to show contrast or strong emphasis. .1959 وكان أول دوري أحرزه عام.فاز فريق األرسنال هذا املوسم ابلدوري العاشر له Arsenal won their 10th trophy this term. The first trophy they got was in 1959. .عاقب انرظر املدرسة يمي الفصل وهذا ما اعتنرانه طاا The head teacher punished the whole class. This we thought was wrong. C. You can start with words and phrases that tell us about your attitude: in my opinion, as far as I am concerned, in my view, luckily, unfortunately: .لألسف حضروا متأطرين مرة اثنية Unfortunately, they came late again. Although SVO is the most common pattern, a longer text written using only this word order may sound very uninteresting. Compare the following examples: THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 79 A. The team played very poorly. They did not score any goals in their first season, and they scored only one in their second season.. B. The team played very poorly. In their first season they did not score any goals, and in their second they scored only one. Order of adjectives If we have more than one adjectives in English we should follow a certain pattern. We often prefer "a nice old bag" to "an old nice bag". "a tall happy man” to “a happy tall man” In Arabic, on the other hand, we can put these adjectives in whatever order we like. حقيبة يميلة قدمية حقيبة قدمية يميلة Below is the sequence of adjectives in English: 1. Adjectives that give opinions or feelings(e.g. I have a lovely car) 2. Adjectives of size(e.g. I have a lovely small car) 3. Adjectives of age(e.g. I have a small old car) 4. Adjectives of shape(e.g. I have a small round car) 5. Adjectives of colour (e.g. I have a lovely round red car) 6. adjectives of nationality (e.g. I have a German cart 7. material (e.g. I have a German iron car 8. type, ( e.g. I have a German iron sports car.) Look at the table below for a more detailed picture of sequence (Quirk and Greebaum 1973: 404). adjectives THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 80 grey crumbling his heavy social life social life church tower church tower old designs interlocking small Gothic head a denominal crumbling a noun London a some intricate provenance Extravagant participle the colour hectic age general determiner the green carved Chinese jade new idol moral responsibilities 5.3 Variety in Sentences type and length Good translators do not follow one pattern of sentences throughout the translated text. They should rather vary the length of the sentences. Sometimes they use short, simple sentences and another time they give longer complex sentences. If they come across a text which consists of short simple sentences, they should combine some sentences by conjunctions, or by using relative clauses or reduced relative clauses. The translator should not stick to only one type of sentences. The use of short and long sentences will make a pleasing change to the eye and ear. This might help the translator avoid monotonous writing. Let us consider the following example quoted from Macaulay’s History of England. THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 81 Carter was the first who broke the French line. He was struck by a splinter from one of his own yardarms, and fell dying on the deck. He would not be carried below. He would not let go his sword. ‘Fight the ship’’ were his last words: ‘Fight the ship as long as she can swim.’ The battle lasted till four in the afternoon.” You can notice that there is only one type of short sentences used in the above paragraph. Let us consider another example which employed longer sentences. The globe has been covered with monuments of their power, and the voice of history transmits their renown from one generation to another. But when we pass from the living world to the dead, what a sad picture do we behold! –the fall and desolation of human nature, the ruins of man, the dust and ashes of many generations scattered over the earth! The high and low, the mighty and the mean, the king and the cottager, lie blended together without any order! A few feet of earth contain the ashes of him who conquered the globe; the shadows of the long night stretch over all alike; the monarch of disorder, the great leveller of mankind, lays all on the bed of clay in equal meanness! It is advisable if we produce long sentences to avoid inserting parenthetical clauses as much as possible, particularly between nuclear elements: SVO. Exercises Rewrite the following translated text by varying the length of the sentences. Sara Taylor arrived in Caracas on June 14. Her uncle met her at the airport. They were walking to the luggage counter. They saw a young boy. He was wearing a blue shirt. He was wearing dark pants. He was with an older woman. She was in a white dress. He was with an older man. The older man was dressed in THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 82 a business suit. The boy was carrying a large present. The present had a ribbon on it. The boy looked at Sara and her uncle carefully. They were the only Americans. They were speaking English. They were in the airport. The young boy came up to Sara and her uncle. The young boy was in the blue shirt and the dark pants. “Excuse me,” he said. Are you Sara Taylor? I am Roberto Perez. Welcome to Caracas!” The woman was Roberto’s mother. She was in the white dress. The man was Roberto’s father. He was in the business suit. They gave the present to Sara. They welcomed her to Venezuela. 5.4 Sentence Structure Unlike English, Arabic is a synthetic language; it allows pronouns to combine with words forming one single word. Such personal pronouns can be suffixed to nouns, verbs or particles. We may form an Arabic word representing a whole sentence. Consider the following word in (2) below. (2) ضربوكthey hit you. Also, the word order in Arabic is more flexible than in English. The grammatical functions in English are mainly based on the word order. For example the verb is often preceded by a verb and followed by an object. In Arabic, on the other hand, you can identify any grammatical function throughout the sentence by the inflection it carries. In English we can distinguish seven types of basic or kernel clauses (Quirk& Greenbaum, 1973: p.166-7). 1) SVA Mary is in the house. 2) SVC Mary is kind (a nurse). THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 3) SVO Somebody caught the ball. 4) SVOA I put the plate on the table. 5) SVOC We have proved him wrong. 6) SVOO She gives me expensive presents. 7) SV The child laughed. 83 In Arabic, on the other hand, the canonical structure of a sentence is VSO. The alternative basic order which is SVO is also possible provided that we have a good reason. For example, iyyaka na'budu 'You-(alone) we-worship' (surah Al-Fatihah: 5). According to the Arabic grammar you can say, na'buduka 'worship-You' but a pronoun referring to Allah preceded the verb to exclude any other one from the act of worshipping. So the translator should not be restricted to the word order unless there is a rationale behind that order. 5.5 Clauses and Phrases In English we may drop some of the above elements for compactness. In example 7 above, we can notice that the most basic English clause contains at least subject and verb. These two elements, i.e. S+V can be dropped without infringing the meaning of the sentence. Words without S and V makes a phrase. As mentioned earlier, the translator should consider varying the type of sentences and phrases can also be another type of sentences. However, the absence of the finite verb from clauses means that they have no distinctions of person or number. This, coupled with the absence of subjects, provides another way of making sentences and reduction of the number of word forms. THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 84 To translate a phrase, we need to change it into a clause before giving the equivalent TL forms. This process could be straightforward if the main clause gives the clues of the dropped element in the sub-clause. Let us consider the following examples, Phrase: While walking to school, Sam met his teacher. Clause: While Sam was walking to class, he______________. .بينما كان سام يسري متجهاً إىل املدرسة قابل معلمه We can notice that "Sam" which is only mentioned in the main clause is transferred first because the referential pronoun in Arabic cannot pre-modify the noun. So we should decompose the phrase into its minimal units for an appropriate translation. Sometimes the adverbial word in addition to the subject and verb are dropped to form a phrase. This is mainly used when expressing the idea of “during the same time”. For example, Walking in the corridor, I met the head teacher. While I was walking,__________________. The initial -ing phrase gives the meaning and function of “while”. Then the above sentence can be translated as: ……………… .بينما كنت أسري يف املمر قابلت النارظر Reading a new book, he heard a baby crying. While he was reading the book,________________. .بينما كان يقرأ كتاابً جديداً مس رضيعاً يبكي THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 85 The initial -ing phrase can express cause and effect as well, i.e. it gives the meaning of “because”. Let us have a look at the following example. Working hard, he passed the exam. Because he worked hard, ________________. .جنح يف االمتحان ألنه كان يعمل (يذاكر) جبد Other adverbs time can also be inferred as in the following example. Having watched the movie, he does not want to go. Because he watched the movie before, _______________. .ال يريد أن يذهب ملشاهدة الفيلم ألنه قد شاهده من قبل The initial -ed participle can give the same function of ing-participle. For example, Motivated by Orwell’s political writings, he wrote his magnificent novel. Because he was Motivated by Orwell’s political writings, he wrote his magnificent novel. .كتب روايته الرائعة ألنه كان متأثراً بكتاابت أورول السياسية 5.6 Parts of Speech The above structures are composed of units, which is called parts of speech. There are ten categories of parts of speech in English (Quirk, 1973: 18). (a) noun: John, room, answer, play adjective: happy, steady, new, large, round THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 86 adverb: steadily, completely, really, very, then verb: search, grow, play, be, have, do (b) article: (the, (a)n), demonstrative: that, this pronoun: he they, anybody, one, which preposition: of, at, in without, in spite of conjunction: and, that, when, although interjection: oh, ah, ugh, phew 5.6.1 Nouns Nouns as shown in the examples above can be of many kinds: proper, common, abstract, concrete, countable, uncountable, singular, plural. Some kinds of nouns are language-specific. So, it is important, for both linguists and translators, to consider the major differences between the different classes of nouns when accounting for another language. For example, some nouns are countable in Arabic not in English. " واجب – واجببتhomework", " ضبر – أضبراharm" " شبرر – أشبرتpoetry", " سلوك – سلوكيتbehaviour" " حزن – أحبزانsadness, melancholy", – مرلومب " مرلومتinformation", etc. 5.6.2 Definite/indefinite Articles The use of definite articles in both English Arabic languages presupposes an earlier mention of a given word. Singular countable nouns, such as "boy", "car", etc. must follow a definite or indefinite article. For example, (3) A boy came quickly. (4) The boy came quickly. Plural countable nouns can either follow definite or zero articles. THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 87 (5) The boys are strong. (specific reference) (6) Boys are strong. (generic reference) Uncountable nouns can either follow definite or zero articles, or optional "some". (7) We will buy the furniture. (definite specific reference) (8) We will buy (some) furniture. (indefinite specific reference) For generic references, non-count and plural count nouns follow zero article. (9) Children are easy to please. (10) Furniture (freedom) gives comfort. In Arabic on the other hand, nouns of generic references, as in example 11 below, must take a definite article. Abstract nouns in English do not take definite/indefinite articles as in 12 & 13 below. (11) Tigers are dangerous animals. .النمور حيواانت طارة (12) Freedom is the shortest way to progress. .احلرية هي أقصر طريق للتقدم (13) Faith glows in the believer's heart. اإلميان يتقد يف قلب املؤمن THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 88 However, with generic references, uncountable concrete and abstract nouns as well as plural nouns can take articles when they are postmodified by an of-phrase as in 14, 15 and 16 below. (14) The music of Egypt (15) The faith of strong Muslims is stronger than that of the weak. (16) The tigers of Africa are more dangerous. 5.6.3 Tenses Arabic has three tenses: past, present, future. The range of verb tenses in English is quite wider in English; there are some twelve tenses in English. However, the three Arabic tenses can still account for any action along the timeline. For example, the verb " " "يأكبeat" can mean both "eats" and "is eating". Thus, "English has a system of verb tenses in the proper sense; that is to say, particular tenses relate fairly consistently to natural time. Arabic, on the other hand, operates with a system that combines tense and aspect" (Dickins: 2002, 99). In Arabic, the context can indicate the sentence tense. We can also use certain expressive words to give the exact meanings of the English verb tenses. In English the time of tenses (present, past, etc.) is marked by means of grammatical elements (inflectional morphemes such as "s", "ed", etc. or grammatical markers such as the auxiliary verb "will", have") Cruse, 2000: 274). In Arabic, on the other hand, timing is marked lexically. For example, to put an action in the present progressive in Arabic we can use some words such as " اآلنnow", اليزال،" متزالstill", etc. (17) Muhammad is eating. THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 89 ))ما زال) أيكل حممد (اآلن The future simple tense in Arabic is marked by the prefix "s" or the word "sawfa" where the former is used to express near future and the latter expresses the open future. The English Past, Future Continuous and Perfect is phrased the same way in Arabic by using كبتنthe copulative verb "be" to pre-modify the verb, as in "I was eating" ككب سبأكون ووتهابت أو حين)بآك ككب, "I had eaten" كنب, and "I will be eating" كنب تبأ أكلب, etc. Perfection of an action is expressed in Arabic with the article تبأ. It is a word when used with the Arabic past it denotes the completion of an action, but with the present, it means less possibility of its occurrence, e.g. " تبأ أكبhe has eaten" تبأ يأكب "he may eat". In short, context must be considered in determining Arabic tenses. 5.7 Absolute object In translation it is hard to keep such parts of speech without changing their categories all the time. The translator may change the position or form of a given word to make it fit in the TT. So s/he can change a V into N, adj., adv. etc. In other words, the structural patterning may differ from a language to another. The point is to keep the naturalness and typicality of the TT along with the content of the SL. In Arabic, for instance, we tend to derive a noun from the same verb used in the sentence and put it in a final position in the sentence for the sake of emphasis. This is called maf'ul mutlaq which is commonly translated as absolute object. THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 90 This is an Arabic part of speech which has nothing to do with the object function or absoluteness. Let us consider the following example quoted from an exam sheet of one of my students: االسبم يتهبر ارأبرأح احهرامبت كبيبرا "Islam respected the woman a great respecting". If we consider the function of احهرامبت كبيبراin the Arabic sentence, we may link it with quantifiers in English. So, we can translate the above sentence as follows: "Islam respects the woman very much". maf'ul mutlaq is called maf'ul object because it is a noun assigning an accusative case. Also it is called mutlaq because it ends with a long vowel "alif", so the final sound is released not absolute. The definitions of مطل ب in Hans Wehr are "free; unlimited, unrestricted, absolute; general". These definitions may distract the attention of the translator from the real meaning of the term. They should rather consider the notion of the term, which refers to the released pronunciation of the final letter of the word and has nothing to do with the content. Dickins (2000: 103) called this phenomenon "root repetition" which involves repeating the same word root in the same sentence. He divided it into three types: 1) system-intrinsic when deriving a nuclear part of speech from another one in the same sentence. E.g. كهتببت " كهبwrote a book". This should be avoided in English. For example if we have a sentence like شرب شبرابتwe should try another verb which can give the same meaning like "he had a drink". 2) absolute accusative is mainly used to function as an adverbial, a quantifier or a prepositional phrase. Let us consider the following examples. Adverbial: (3) ًلقد تاورت رظاهرة التارف يف مصر تاوراً جذري THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 91 The phenomenon of extremism has developed radically in Egypt. Quantifier: (4) .ًحيبون املال حباً يما The love money so much Prepositional Phrase: (5) ًشرحت الدرس شرحاً وافيا I explained the lesson in detail. Sometimes we keep the noun without changing its category and make the change to the verb. (6) ًيدعم احلزب الفقراء دعماً حقيقيا The party gives a genuine support to the poor people. 3) The third type of root repetition, highlighted by Dickins, is not limited to a particular part of speech. We can make use of it to give a sense of emphasis implied in its rhythmic tone. This does not belong to the Arabic case of maf'ul mutlaq, but it is worth mentioning it here for they are employed for the same purpose. (7) أطماع الاامعني The ambitions of the covetous (8) .صبغ أتباعه بصبغة الصوفية He made his followers Sufi-like people. (9) .اثر اثئرته THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 92 Fly into a rage. 5.8 Passivization In semantics, to passivize is to make the more active element functions as subject whereas the less active element functions as direct object. Passive is used to promote the less active element and demote the logical subject. Passivization works well when the logical subject is ignored. Once we have both subject and object, it becomes less formal to passivize, particularly in Arabic. (18) .بيعت السيارة The car was sold But consider the following example, (19) The car was sold by Mandy بيعت السيارة بواساة مندي The example in (19) above is not typically used in Arabic. The active voice is more recommended in such a case. In English to give prominence to the object is mainly done through passivization. The central item in sentence (18) is the word "car" this is why it was fronted. However, the same evocative meaning can be represented in different ways in Arabic without any need to use passive voice. To keep the metaphorical meaning of passive in English intact, we can resort to nominal sentences. To translate the sentence in (18), we can put it in active voice as follows: (20) .السيارة ابعها مندي THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 93 Fronting the word " ارسببيت حcar" maintained the evocative meaning of passive voice in English while keeping the formality and typicality of the Arabic usage. A more frequent way for translating Arabic passive sentences that contain ‘by’ phrase is to use مب تببلب. It depends on the genre under examination. The sentence in (20) fits well with classic texts, whereas with modern texts we often use the phrase م تب, for example, .اآلراء املتضاربة اليت طرحت من قبل احلزب أصبحت ابلية .اآلراء املتضاربة اليت طرحها احلزب أصبحت ابلية 5.9 Irregular Sentences There are several ways in which sentences undergo irregularities. Sometimes we come across verbless sentences or sentences which lack auxiliary verbs, articles or finite forms. Such a diversion from the grammar of continuous discourse is not used haphazardly. It is mainly used for packing content words into small spaces. “Language so used may be termed ‘block language’. It appears in such functions as labels, titles, headings, notices, and advertisements (Quirk and Greenbaum: 1985, 205). For example, Election a landslide for socialists In the above example, you can notice that the verb is missing. Also consider the following headlines coupled with some detail below to show the real structure of the headline. Israel admits air strike on Syria Israel confirms for the first time that it carried out a strike on a Syrian military site almost a month ago. THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 94 Kabul hit by new suicide bomb At least 13 people were killed in the second suicide attack in the Afghan capital, Kabul, in four days. إسرائيل تفرج عن 29معتقال من غزة ..وتعتقل 500فلسطيين خالل شهر سبتمرب! يف الوقت الذي أفرجت فيه إسرائيل أمس عن 29أسريا فلساينيا من سكان قااع غزة يف طاوة وصففت أبهنا جاءت لدعم الرئيس الفلسايين حممود عباس (أبفو مفازن) كشفف تقريفر دوع عفن أن قفوات االحفتلل اإلسرائيلي اعتقلت ما يزيد علي 500فلسايين طلل شهر سبتمنر املاضي. الربيطانيون يسحبون ألف جندي من العراق رئففيس الففوزراء النرياففان جففوردن بفراون يقففول إن ألففف جنفدي برياففان سففيغادرون العفرا قبففل هنايففة العففام. وخماوف من اندالع قتال بني امليليشيات يف البصرة ملك األردن يتوجه إىل الكويت يتوجففه العاهففل األردن عبففد هللا الثففان إىل الكويففت اليففوم األحففد إلجفراء حمففاداثت مف أمريهففا الشففي صففبا ّ األمحد اجلابر الصبا . 5.10 Coordination and Subordination Coordination and subordination are used to express related ideas. The former involves linking of units which are equal syntactically and semantically, whereas "[the latter] is a non-symmetrical relation, holding between two clauses in such a way that one is a constituent or part of the other" (Quirk et al., 1973: 309). Words, phrases, clauses, and sentences can be connected by coordinators or conjunctions. There are three coordinators in English: and, or and but. THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 95 Subordination can be made by (1) a subordinating conjunction (such as after, because, since, etc.); (2) a wh-element (who, when, etc.); (3) the item that; (4) inversion; (5) the absence of a finite verb form (Quirk et al., 1973: 313). Conjunctions between words or phrases is a straightforward process. The conjoined parts are connected by "and" and "or" directly. (21) James and Bill are happy. With more than two items "and" or "or" is used right before the final item. In a series of three or more items with a conjunction, a comma is used after each item except (in the US usage) or including (in the UK usage) the one preceding the conjunction. (22) Bill likes apple juice, chicken and pizza. (UK) (23) Bill likes apple juice, chicken, and pizza. (US) All coordinators are used for linking phrases, whereas there are only two subordinators which can be used to link adjective phrases and adverb phrases: "though" and "if" as shown below. (24) He speaks fast though clearly. (25) I have a nice though old glasses. (26) A very pleasant if talkative child. (27) He looked at me kindly if somewhat skeptically. In clauses both coordination and subordination are utilized. But the latter is more preferable in English than the former. Subordination is more employed in formal and academic writing than coordination. Othman THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 96 (2004) argues that "the use of subordination, rather than coordination, will immensely help in making one's writing more mature, sophisticated, interesting and effective. He quoted Oshima's commentary on an example paragraph whose clauses are conjoined by coordinators and another time with subordinators. She says, on one hand, "the overuse of coordination makes it both boring to read and difficult to focus on the ideas expressed" (Oshima, 1991: 165, quoted in Othman, 2004). On the other hand, when subordination is employed, the writing style becomes more interesting and effective. Let us consider the two paragraphs examined by Oshima. Version (1) John F. Kennedy was the thirty-fifth President of the United States, and he was born in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1917. His father was Ambassador to England, so he was exposed to politics at an early age. Kennedy decided to enter the political arena, so he ran for Congress from Massachusetts, and he was elected to the Senate in 1953. His term ended in 1960, for he was elected President that same year at the age of 43. He was the first Roman Catholic, and he was the youngest man ever to occupy the presidency. He had planned to run again in the 1964 election year, but he was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. Kennedy served America for such a short time, but he inspired people all over the free world because of his youth, his spirit, and his style. (From Oshima, 1991: 165) Version (2) John F. Kennedy, who was the thirty-fifth President of the United States, was born in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1917. Because his father was Ambassador to England, he was exposed to politics early in life. Deciding to enter the political THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 97 arena, he ran for Congress from Massachusetts and was elected to the Senate in 1953. His term ended in 1960, when he was elected President that same year at the age of 43. He was not only the first Roman Catholic but also the youngest man ever to occupy the presidency. He had planned to run again in the 1964 election year, but he was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. Although Kennedy served America for such a short time, he inspired people all over the free world because of his youth, his spirit, and his style. (Oshima, 1991: 165, quoted by Othman, 2004) When translating we should consider the target language and how this language combine words, phrases and clauses. Does this language employs coordination and subordination on the same footing. We have mentioned earlier that formal English mainly employs subordination. Both phenomena exist in Arabic. Unlike English, Arabic mostly employs coordinators like و "and", " فthen", " ثبthen" " أوor" " ركبbut". The first coordinator is widely used in Arabic. It can connect words, phrases, clauses, sentences, even paragraphs. It is more frequently used in Arabic for a number of reasons: (1) It should be mentioned before every conjoined item. In Arabic, the use of comma does not replace " وand" as in English. .جاء علي وحممد وزيد Ali, Mohamed and Zayd came. (2) It can introduce an adverbial clause of manner ()حتل. ِ ف وهو حيم ُل کفُتفُبَه َّ حضر الاالِبُ إلی ِّ الص َ The student came to class carrying his books. THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 98 (3) It can start a paragraph or a sentence without a previous mention of any paragraph or a sentence to link them. It is called then " واو ارتكتيبnarrative conjunction and" Othman (2004) argues that coordination is more frequently used in Arabic than in English. To maintain the naturalness and typicality of the translated text, the translator should bear in mind which syntactic device s/he will employ throughout translation: subordination or coordination. This entirely depends on language idiosyncrasies. In English language for example, as mentioned earlier, subordination is more frequently used than coordination. The latter characterizes the Arabic language. Let us consider the following examples. (28) .ذاكر علي جبد فنجح يف امتحانه -Ali studied hard, and (therefore) he passed the test. (coordination) -Because Ali studied well, he passed the test. (subordination) -Having studied well, Ali passed the test. (subordination) You can notice that the sentences which employ subordination above are more natural, more effective and smoother. Let us now consider a longer example from the Arabic language, quoted from the Book of Misers by AlJahiz, coupled with its translation by a professional translator. قصة أسد بن جان فأما أسد بن جان فكان جيعل سريره يف الشتاء من قصفب مقشفر ألن النراغيف وكان إذا دطل الصيف وحر عليه بيته.تزلق عن ليط القصب لفرط لينه ومالسته ويتوطؤه حفىت.فر. مث يصب عليه جراراً كثرية مفن مفاء الب.أاثره حىت يغر املسحاة THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 99 فؤإذا امتفد بففه النفد ودام بففرده.ً فؤال يفزال ذلففل البيفت ابرداً مففا دام نفدي.يسفتوي وإن جففف قبففل انقضففاء الصففيف وعؤؤاد عليففه.بدوامففه اكتفففل بففذلل التنريففد صففيفته ري. طيشيت أرض وماء طيشيت من ب: وكان يقول.احلر عاد عليه ابإلاثرة والصب . وأان أفضلهم أيضاً بفضل احلكمة وجودة اآللة.وبييت أبرد ومهنيت أطف (Al-Jahiz, Al-Hayawan, (Cairo 1969) ed. Abd al-Salam Harun) The tale of Asad ibn Jani Now, in winter, Asad b. Jani used to make his bed peeled (marsh)-reed since fleas slide off the surface of cane because of its great suppleness and smoothness. It was his practice, when summer came in and his room became too hot for him, to dig up its (hard earth floor) enough to sink his spade. Then he would pour many jars of well-water onto it and tread it down till it became level. So that room would stay cool as long as it retained any moisture. If it continued to hold moisture and stayed cool he would be content with this cooling while it lasted for his summer. If it dried out before the summer ended and brought back the heat on him he would dig it over and pour water on it again. He used to say: "My cloth bower is earth and the water for my cloth bower comes from my well. My room is cooler and my costs lighter. Moreover I surpass all of them by virtue of (my) greater wisdom and excellence of the appliance (I use)." (Al-Jahiz, the Book of Misers, (England, 2000) trans. Prof. R.B. Serjeant) You can now notice that there are 19 occurrences of coordinators in the Arabic text, whereas they are only 8 in its English counterpart. This shows the high frequency of coordinators in Arabic. To translate from Arabic into THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 100 English, such coordinators (1) disappear, (2) correspond to punctuation markers or (3) become subordinators. 5.11 Grammatical Gender The Arabic language makes distinction between two genders: masculine and feminine. These two genders are also employed for neutral nouns/adjectives. Unlike English, any Arabic noun/adjective has to be either masculine or feminine. So the translator from English into Arabic will be confused when he/she comes a cross a word in English which can be used for masculine or feminine reference such as "teacher, worker, president, etc." Once a translator makes a decision on the gender of the pronominal reference of such words he will exclude the other gender. However, the use of the ‘dominant’ masculine form does not exclude the possibility of feminine reference in Arabic (Al-Qinai: 2000, p. 515). Sometimes the translator is intrigued by the distinction between masculine and feminine in Arabic and tries to give the exact gender for every word he comes across. This is too simplistic in English. Most words in English can be used either way: feminine and masculine. For example, "teacher, doctor, professor, worker, player, etc." can refer to both men and women. To translate such words into Arabic you should decide from the very beginning the gender at hand. Conversely, in translation from Arabic into English, most translators put the equivalent without showing the gender if it refers to masculine. To show the femininity of a word, translators used to add the word "feminine" as in " مأ سبتfeminine teachers". This is not typically used in the English language. In English the same word can be used for masculine and feminine. The referential pronouns employed throughout the text can give a clue what gender is at play. THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 101 For the translator from Arabic into English he/she will be more inclined to use the masculine pronoun for general and generic references. This is not plausible to the English readers/listeners today. To avoid this pitfall he/she can insert an optional pronoun like "he/she, his/her". Nouns with general reference can also be used like "spokesperson", "chairperson", etc. 5.12 Punctuation Punctuation is defined as the use of standard signs to divide words into phrases, clauses and sentences to clarify meaning. It is also used to maintain the coherence and cohesion of writing. For example, commas which are used in English to separate words and make the text easy to read can give meaning, consider the following sentence. (29) My cousin who lives in France arrived. (30) My cousin, who lives in France, arrived. In sentence 21 the relative clause is a restrictive apposition, whereas the sentence in 22 which uses commas is non-restrictive. In other words, sentence 21 means that the speaker has a number of cousins, one of them lives in France. So, the subject can only be identified to the listener through the relative clause "who lives in France". The modification in sentence 22 is not essential for identifying the subject. The other punctuation markers can also give meaning, such that colon is used for introducing a quotation, an explanation, a description, a list of items. See also the use of semicolons, periods, question markers, etc. Traditionally, punctuation was not utilized in Classical Arabic. As a matter of fact, there were some punctuation markers introduced in Classical Arabic but were limited to the Holy Qur'an. Such markers are drawn above 102 THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL words to indicate pauses, non-pauses, and so on. The other registers in Arabic lacked such markers. However, punctuation in its modern sense is not employed in classical Arabic texts. This is because writings and speeches were transmitted orally in the early days of Islam. The Qur'an and Hadith themselves were first transmitted orally and from scattered scrolls. As far as I know, the main purpose of the early Arabic writings was to be delivered to the people orally, since books were not widely used in the Muslim world because of the high cost of the manual writing and copying. So, the Arabic style relied heavily on phonic tools even in writing. This is why Arabic favors coordinators which are more explicit than subordinators. For example, " وand" " فthen/and" used in Arabic to start a new sentence and even a new paragraph because punctuation markers were not considered before. In the same vein, many punctuation markers are lexicalized in Arabic. For example أمبت بربأwhich marks the end of a preamble and the beginning of the body of the message. We can simply ignore it and start a new paragraph. This is the typical English use. However, if we want to produce a literal translation, especially in the Prophet's sayings we can use an equivalent phrase which introduces a transition such as "Now, with this in mind, having said so, etc.". Today the Arabic language is influenced by the modern developments in writing, including punctuation. However, it is subject to the writer's taste and discretion. In other words, it is inconsistent and arbitrary. It does not necessarily have to follow the exact signs of the TL text. Furthermore, some punctuation markers are misused in Arabic. For example, "…" which is used for ellipsis in English is used for a long pause or change of tone in Arabic. Also, some translators combine some punctuation signs for the sake THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 103 of emphasis such as ":-" which is used instead of colon, "?!" for emphatic questions and "!!" for strong interjection. 5.12.1 How sentences are made? The way in which sentences are put in Arabic differs from that in English. In English, the division between sentences is consistently indicated by a period (full stop). In Arabic, on the other hand, the range of the Arabic sentence could be quite bigger than in English. For instance, we may find the subject or the object of a given sentence is located far apart in the sentence irrespective of how many words intervening between it and its verb, so long as the referential pronoun is considered. So, it is left to the translator's discretion to divide long Arabic sentences into smaller ones that correspond to the English sentence. Let us consider the following example: توالك هللا حبفظه وأعانل علل شكره ووفقفل لااعتفه وجعلفل مفن الففائزين برمحتفه حفظ ففل هللا أن ففل ق ففرأت كت ففا يف تص ففنيف حي ففل لص ففو النه ففار ويف- ذك ففرت تفص ففيل حي ففل س فرا اللي ففل وأن ففل س ففددت ب ففه ك ففل طل ففل وحص ففنت ب ففه ك ففل ع ففورة وتقدمت مبا أففادك مفن لافائف ا فدع ونبهفل عليفه مفن غرائفب احليفل فيمفا عسفل أال يبلغففه كيففد وال حيففوزه مكففر وذكففرت أن موق ف نفعففه عظففيم وأن التقففدم يف درسففه اذكر ع نفوادر الفباللء واحتجفاا األشفحاء ومفا جيفوز مفن ذلفل يف:واجب وقلت ابب اهلففزل ومففا جيففوز منففه يف ابب اجلففد ألجعففل اهلففزل مسفااحا والراحففة يمامففا فف ن .مراجعته للجد كدا مين من معاودته وال بد ملن التمس نفعه من May Allah take you to preserve you under His charge, aid you to show Him gratitude and set you among those to receive His mercy. You remarked, Allah preserve you, that you have read my book on the classification of the ruses of thieves who rob by THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 104 day and the detailed exposé of the tricks of thieves who rob by night. (You also remarked) that thereby you have stopped up each crack and fortified each breach, surpassing (others) through what it told you of subtle deceits and strange devices against which it cautioned you—that perchance no stratagem will succeed in countering or cunning manage (to foil). You remarked (furthermore) that it has been of great benefit (to you) and that it is essential to devote oneself to) the study of it. "Tell me", you say, "humorous anecdotes of misers and the logic of stingy persons—those falling under the heading of pleasantry into a means of relaxation and relief. For seriousness involves exertion that impedes reversion to it and he who wishes to benefit by it must keep coming back to it." You can notice in the above example quoted from the Book of Misers by Al-Jahiz, translated by Serjeant (2000) that one Arabic sentence (ending with a full stop) was translated into six in English. This sort of coordination can continue for the whole paragraph. Then the translator has to split such coordinated sentences into shorter ones which can conform to either a coordinate or subordinate English sentence. 5.12.2 Paragraphing A paragraph is a group of sentences that discuss one central idea. However, this device is not used in Arabic as a division of ideas and thoughts. Sometimes the translator tends to split the Arabic paragraphs when he feels a given paragraph became longer than the other paragraphs in the same text. Another time s/he produces extremely short paragraphs that fragment ideas. Actually, the main function of paragraphing is not for decoration; it is rather for maintaining the cohesion of the text and to minimize memory load. Paragraphing makes the process of reading and THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 105 assimilating the text easy by dividing the ideas and information presented in the text into manageable sections. Bearing in mind the nature of paragraphing in English vs. Arabic we would be able to play with sentences within the paragraph contours to improve the textual effectiveness of a TT. But it is not common in translation to divide a long paragraph into short ones or joining short paragraphs together to form a long one because this may render incohesive paragraphs. In fact, we need to stick to the main function of paragraphing, namely, the division of ideas and thoughts. Strictly speaking, reparagraphing may be necessary in Arabic-English translation to be in conformity with the TT system of structural paragraphs. On the contrary, when we translate from English into Arabic, we can switch to the Arabic style of paragraphing, bearing in mind that we still can keep the main function of paragraphing: Each paragraph should discuss a central idea. 5.13 Explicitness Olohan and Baker (2000) defined explicitness as "the spelling out in a target text of information which is only implicit in a source text." Actually, the translated text tends to be more explicit and larger than the source text for a number of reasons. (1) Literal translation tends to be longer than other types of translation. (2) The translator sometimes intervenes in the text by making glosses for ambiguous items, i.e. adding words or phrases for the sake of explanation. (3) Lexical repetition (4) Semantic repetition (cf. Ch. 4) (5) syntactic simplification. 106 THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL The translator tends to create some sort of relationship between his sentences by means of repetition of names and noun phrases rather than the use of pronouns and other types of lexical equivalence1. This also makes his translation more explicit than the source text. Now let us consider some features of syntactic simplification. The economic use of language in a given language may not work in another language. In Arabic for example, the complement is linked to a subject directly without a copulative verb. In English the copulative verb is nuclear. Consider the following example: (31) الرجل يف البيت The man is at home. Now let us consider the following example. 1 There are many factors to be considered when writing more than a sentence. In the first place sentences should be semantically related. Secondly we should make sure that all sentences are lexically related through the usage of lexical equivalents. I would like to put more emphasis on lexical equivalence because this is a more practical way to keep your sentences relevant. Quirk and Greenbaum (1973) stated, "We can expect successive sentences to show some relationship through their vocabulary, some equivalence in the lexical items. The simplest form of such lexical equivalence is through the repetition of words and phrases." Below are some types of repetition which can be used along with simple repetition pf words: 1. simple repetition: planet – planets 2. complex repetition: planet – planetary 3. Pro-forms: planets- they 4. simple paraphrase: path- track 5. Co-reference (for text): Bush- the American president 6. Ellipsis: some astronomers = one 7. Particular-general: Pluto- planet 8. Complex paraphrase: solar – sun 9. Closed sets (including numbers if accompanied by another type of repetition): Pluto- Neptune 10. Antonymy: small- massive 11. Representative- Represented: America –Mr. Bush. THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 107 (32) The man in the bus. الرجل الذي جيلس يف احلافلة The man sitting in the bus. The man who is sitting in the bus. You can notice that the last sentence is more explicit than the previous ones. The above English phrase which lacks the copulative verb employs ellipsis. To translate it into Arabic we should rephrase it into its original form. Another aspect of explicitness in language is the use or omission of the word that. We must bear in mind that our aim throughout this book is to keep the content of the source text intact. So we will be dealing with the word that which is used for grammatical functions vs. that which functions as a nuclear element in the sentence is beyond the scope of this study. For example, That he speaks English fluently is already known. Your score, that astonished the teacher, was great. For non-nuclear that, Storm (1966: 265) notes, "that has no inherent semantic meaning but only a functional, grammatical meaning, i.e., it constitutes the grammatical means of joining two clauses". Generally speaking, McDavid (1964) notes, in English "that was missing most often when the clause was the object of a verb, frequently with such common verbs as know and say." Storm (ibid: 266-7) gives a detailed list of the words that precede the that-clause as follows. THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 108 a. Verbs which are on the whole more objective: say, tell, state, declare, remark, observe, announce, pronounce, protest, profess, proclaim, assert, aver, avouch, write, print, telephone, wire, report, answer, reply, rejoin, retort, propose, suggest, submit, add, have it, recall, remember, forget, foresee, foretell, predict. b. Verbs which are on the whole objective: affirm, confirm, maintain, ensure, prove, deny, doubt, show, manifest, point out, demonstrate, indicate, postulate, find out, find, discover, mean, signify, establish, ascertain, learn, teach, dream, promise, threaten, hint, claim, pretend, recommend, infer, conclude, deduce, take it, follow, (it follow that), imply, argue, reason, judge, settle, object, agree, stress, emphasize, reflect, consider, estimate, admit, acknowledge, confess, accept, assume, presume, recognize, grant, concede, beg, pray, convince s.b. c. Verbs which are fairly objective: see, feel, hear, perceive, note, notice, (observe), sense, understand, realize. d. Verbs which are predominantly subjective: think, believe, suppose, guess, reckon, trust, bet, imagine, (feel), fancy, suspect. e. Verbs which may be objective or subjective: fear, dread, worry, hope, wish, desire, prefer, regret, deplore, lament, complain, rejoice, brag, boast, astonish s.b., surprise s.b., amaze s.b., puzzle s.b., wonder, annoy s.b., anger s.b., vex s.b., strike s.b. f. Link verbs which occur only in personal constructions: seem, appear, happen, occur, be. g. Verbs that are said to govern clauses of purposes: instruct, direct, will, want, rule, order, arrange, command, urge, insist, (ask), THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL 109 demand, request, require, stipulate, decide, determine, resolve, make up one's mind, insist, take care, see (to it). Storms (ibid: 262) concluded, "the-that clause tends … to be less personal, less familiar, less warm, less friendly, less emotive. It is objective, factual, formal, official, sometimes tending to hostility". She gave the following examples in (33) & (34) to support her argument: (33) I hope he will be able to play on Saturday (supporter). (34) I hope that he will not be better on Saturday (opponent). Syntactically speaking, we cannot easily determine where and when we can omit that; it is mainly based on the context. On the other hand, McDavid (ibid: 109) argues, it is possible to figure out where we can include that. 1) when one of the verbs mentioned in the list above is modified, (e.g. I think generally that the book is useful). 2) When the subordinate clause is compounded, both parts are generally preceded by that (e.g. He found, however, that the patient's associations never led him immediately to the root of the matter, but that they flowed and skipped in a haphazard way.) 3) When the that-clause occurs as an object of the infinitive (e.g. we came to confirm that he will come tomorrow). Let us now discuss the phenomenon of explicitness with regard to the inclusion or deletion of the optional that with the reporting verbs "say" and "tell" in translation as investigated by Olohan and Baker (2000). Based on the classification of Storms mentioned above Burnett (1999) examined some verbs using translated English corpus. He concluded that "subjective verbs would favour a zero-connective" (Brunett, 1999: quoted in 110 THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL Olohan & Baker, 2000). Having assessed the phenomenon more extensively on the various forms of "say" and "tell" Olohan and Baker (ibid: 154) supported Brunett premise that that-clause is more frequently used in translated texts than in original English. This proves the prevalence of syntactic explicitness in translation.