This thesis dealt with the English pluperfect in the Czech-English direction of translation. The aim of this thesis was to identify indices/motives leading to the use of the past perfect in the English translation, which could be found in the underlying Czech clauses. 200 examples and their English translational equivalents were analysed. Intercorp was used for excerption. It is an online parallel corpus tool made and run by Český národní korpus (Czech National Corpus). After the examples were excerpted, the complete parts of the Czech texts (used for excerption) were analysed. I tried to assess the constructions that should be translated by the past perfect myself. This should help to identify the Czech indices/motives leading to the use of the pluperfect in the English translation. My accuraccy in assessing the Czech constructions translated by the pluperfect was 38.5% (I managed to identify 77 out 200 examples found in the corpus). The examples found in the corpus were later classified according to the supposed reason for the use of the past perfect in the English translation, found in the Czech original. The groups were as follows: An adverbial or another lexical device contributing to specification of temporal relations (72 examples, 36%), Hypothetical past meaning (11 examples, 5.5%),...

The main intention of this study is to describe the pluperfect verbal tense and its evolution in European Portuguese. This study consists of two parts, theoretical and practical. The theoretical part starts with a short description of the portuguese language. The following chapter is focused on description of portuguese verb and its gramatical categories, portuguese modotemporal system and classification of portuguese verbs. There is an explantaion of how the verbal tenses and nominal forms are constructed in portuguese, using the example of constructing the imperfect and participle. The next chapter deals with the pluperfperfect in contemporary portuguese. It describes its forms both simple and compound and explains the use of auxiliary verbs. There is also a description of the functions of pluperfect on different levels of the portuguese language (standard, colloquial, literary etc.). The next chapter is dedicated to pluperfect in classical and vulgar latin. The last theoretical chapter deals with stages in the evolution of Portuguese and includes a list of the most significant linguistic changes occured in each stage. The practical part consists in analysing the portuguese texts from the 14th till the 19th century, using the corpus Corpus do Português. There are approximately 300 examples of...

Most of the Germanic languages developed new tense forms allowing the grammatical expression of fine semantic distinctions, including periphrastic perfects and pluperfects; previously, the preterite alone had been used to express semantic content of this sort. In the absence of robust quantitative data regarding the subsequent development of these forms and distribution in the early Germanic languages, a relatively uncomplicated model has generally been assumed, in which there is little synchronic variation in their use and a steady, though not necessarily continuous, diachronic progress toward the state observed in the modern languages. The goal of this work is to provide accurate quantitative data regarding the apportionment of these semantic domains among the available grammatical forms in Old English and Old Saxon, in order to provide meaningful measurements of the synchronic and diachronic use of the periphrastic forms. Very different patterns were found in the use of these forms in the two languages. In Old Saxon the periphrastic forms are used freely, with a frequency similar to or greater than that of the preterites. In Old English there are no significant diachronic trends, but considerable variation exists synchronically among texts, with some making free use of the periphrastic forms and others preferring the preterite almost exclusively. A number of factors potentially responsible for this variation have been investigated, but none can account for the entire range of observed variation on its own. In the absence of any other account for the observed variation, the hypothesis is proposed that the periphrastic forms and the preterite differed in their perceived stylistic value, in a manner whose exact nature may be no longer recoverable; such a hypothesis would be in keeping with previous findings regarding languages such as Middle English and Middle High German. Old English and Old Saxon would therefore differ in the extent to which they make use of the potential for variation created by the absence of a paradigmatic opposition among the relevant grammatical categories.

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<p>This work consists of two parts: the theoretical and the experimental. In the theoretical part, some general and some language specific theories of tense, aspect and aktionsart are presented, and the temporal systems of Swedish and Polish are compared. </p><p>The theoretical part is not a mere review of the literature on the subject. The comparison of the descriptions of aspect and aktionsart by Slavic researchers with the universal theory of Smith (1991) and (1977) and with description of aktionsart in Swedish in Teleman et al. (1999) has allowed me for some important observations as to the nature of the long-lasting dispute about the differences between aspect and aktionsart.</p><p>The experimental part is a cross-sectional study on the role of the linguistic context on the acquisition of the pluperfect by Polish learners Swedish as a foreign language. The informants are university students studying Swedish as a foreign language. The language samples were collected by means of two types of tests: gap-filling and translation from Polish. </p><p>Twelve linguistic factors, each divided into two subgroups, were hypothesised to have affected the correct use of the pluperfect. All those hypotheses as to which of the subgroups may inhibit and which may facilitate the correct use of the pluperfect are grounded in linguistic theories, i.e. presented in the form of linguistically-based discussions as to what kind of effect, facilitative or inhibiting, each of the linguistic factors may have had, and why. </p><p>The effect of those factors upon the correct use of the pluperfect has been tested by means of a step-wise multiple regression which measured the simultaneous effect of each factor upon the correct use of the pluperfect. This method has confirmed the facilitative effect of the following six linguistic factors: intrasentential indication of topic time (subordinate clause), unbounded verb indicating topic time, agentive meaning of the target verb, specifying subordinate clause, statal pluperfect and location of the time of action of pluperfect clause outside the temporal frame of narrative plot.</p>

This work consists of two parts: the theoretical and the experimental. In the theoretical part, some general and some language specific theories of tense, aspect and aktionsart are presented, and the temporal systems of Swedish and Polish are compared. The theoretical part is not a mere review of the literature on the subject. The comparison of the descriptions of aspect and aktionsart by Slavic researchers with the universal theory of Smith (1991) and (1977) and with description of aktionsart in Swedish in Teleman et al. (1999) has allowed me for some important observations as to the nature of the long-lasting dispute about the differences between aspect and aktionsart. The experimental part is a cross-sectional study on the role of the linguistic context on the acquisition of the pluperfect by Polish learners Swedish as a foreign language. The informants are university students studying Swedish as a foreign language. The language samples were collected by means of two types of tests: gap-filling and translation from Polish. Twelve linguistic factors, each divided into two subgroups, were hypothesised to have affected the correct use of the pluperfect. All those hypotheses as to which of the subgroups may inhibit and which may facilitate the correct use of the pluperfect are grounded in linguistic theories, i.e. presented in the form of linguistically-based discussions as to what kind of effect, facilitative or inhibiting, each of the linguistic factors may have had, and why. The effect of those factors upon the correct use of the pluperfect has been tested by means of a step-wise multiple regression which measured the simultaneous effect of each factor upon the correct use of the pluperfect. This method has confirmed the facilitative effect of the following six linguistic factors: intrasentential indication of topic time (subordinate clause), unbounded verb indicating topic time, agentive meaning of the target verb, specifying subordinate clause, statal pluperfect and location of the time of action of pluperfect clause outside the temporal frame of narrative plot.

Cette étude porte sur la forme périphrastique había- + do/-to/-cho que la tradition grammaticale répertorie comme le « plus-que-parfait de l’indicatif », en espagnol contemporain. Après avoir interrogé les différentes approches auxquelles a donné lieu l’étude de cette forme verbale, nous en proposons un signifié unique en langue qui en subsume l’ensemble des manifestations discursives. Pour cela, nous adoptons les principes théoriques de la « linguistique du signifiant », laquelle postule l’unicité du signe linguistique – à un signifiant correspond un seul signifié, et inversement – et accorde la primauté à la lecture de la structure sémiologique du signifiant. Cette approche nous conduit à replacer había- + do/-to/-cho au sein des réseaux signifiants de l’espagnol, et à reconsidérer la structuration modale du système verbal de cette langue. Enfin, nous nous employons à décrire le fonctionnement discursif de la périphrase en syntaxe, dans l’élaboration de séquences narratives, d’une part, mais aussi dans les « cas limites » que représentent les emplois diatopiques en situation de contact de langue en Amérique (contact espagnol / guarani en particulier) / This study focuses on the periphrastic form había- + do/-to/-cho that the grammatical tradition identifies as the ‘pluperfect (past perfect) indicative’ in contemporary Spanish. After reviewing the different approaches to this verbal form, we provide a unique signified for this form that is able to subsume all its discursive manifestations. For this purpose, we adopt the theoretical principles of the ‘Linguistics of the signifier’, which postulates the unity of the linguistic sign – i.e. a signifier corresponds to a single signified, and vice versa – and gives priority to the semiological structure of the signifier. This approach leads us to reexamine había- + do/-to/-cho within the signifying networks of Spanish, and to reconsider the modal structure of the verbal system. Finally, we describe the discursive syntactic behaviour of the Spanish pluperfect, in the development of narrative sequences, but also in certain Latin American diatopic occurrences (contact Spanish / Guarani in particular) since they are ‘borderline case’ among the pluperfect discursive occurrences