The aim of the thesis "Non-finite clauses (infinitive, gerund, present participle) and speech" is to describe the occurence and the use of the non-finite clauses in spoken French. The situation of the non-finite clauses in speech is established by means of the analysis of the essay "Usage du gérondif et du participe présent en francais parlé et écrit : étude comparée basée sur corpus" and the inquiry. Another aim is to suggest various expressions that could replace the non-finite clauses. These expressions result from the inquiry that was made with only natives speakers responding. We also try to consider the influence of different aspects such as age, profession, nationality on the usage of the the non-finite clauses. The conclusions that we come to in the thesis should enlighten the situation of the non-finite clauses infinitive, gerund, present participle in spontaneous speech and they could also serve as a tool for French teachers in the form of a review of the present state of the issue in spoken French. KEYWORDS non-finite clause, infinitive, gerund, present participle, speech

La présente recherche traite des constructions participiales en –ing de l’anglais contemporain. Elle s’appuie sur un corpus de plus de 1700 occurrences de participiales issues de romans et d’articles de journaux, ainsi que sur le British National Corpus et le Corpus of Contemporary American English. Les participiales ont pour caractéristique majeure ne pas expliciter les liens syntaxiques et sémantiques qui les unissent à la proposition dont elles dépendent. Pour expliquer les fondements linguistiques de cette propriété, la recherche établit une typologie détaillée des participiales, étudie les relations qu’elles entretiennent avec leur sujet, ainsi que la nature de l’incidence et de la prédication qui les caractérisent, et détaille les interprétations sémantiques qu’elles peuvent recevoir. Elle montre que la valeur sémantique basique des participiales est la circonstance concomitante, soit un simple lien établi entre deux procès qui forment une unité dans l’esprit de l’énonciateur. Ce sont les traits spécifiques du co- et du contexte qui peuvent modifier cette valeur basique pour déboucher sur l’interprétation finale, adverbiale ou adjectivale, de la participiale. La recherche propose, dans le cadre de la psychosystématique de Gustave Guillaume, des hypothèses susceptibles d’expliquer le comportement syntaxique et sémantique des participiales ; elle montre qu’il est directement lié au sens du participe présent, dont il est postulé que l’incidence est interne et qu’il code la simultanéité et l’imperfectif dans tous ses emplois. / This research deals with –ing participle clauses in contemporary English. It is based on a corpus totalling over 1,700 participle clauses collected from novels and newspaper articles, and it also relies on data from electronic corpora – the British National Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American English. The main characteristic of –ing participle clauses is that they lack an explicit syntactic and semantic link to their superordinate clause: to shed light on the linguistic phenomena accounting for this specificity, the research establishes a detailed typology of –ing clauses, studies their relationship to their subjects, investigates the specific nature of their incidence and predication, and provides a detailed analysis of their semantic indeterminacy. It shows that their basic semantic value is one of attendant circumstance – a mere link between two events or states that form a unit in the speaker’s mind. The characteristics of the co- and context may alter this basic value to give the clause its final (adjectival or adverbial) meaning. The research puts forward hypotheses to account for the syntactic and semantic characteristics of –ing participle clauses within the framework of Gustave Guillaume’s psychosystematic theory: it shows the syntactic and semantic behaviour of –ing clauses can be directly traced back to the meaning of the –ing participle, which, it is hypothesised, has an internal incidence and expresses simultaneity and imperfectivity in all of its uses.

The aim of this study was to analyze the translation of verb constructions with participles from French into Swedish of three news articles from the French magazine Le Point (2021). The articles were published in a special issue dedicated to climate change. The analysis focused on the translation of present and past participle phrases and the strategies involved in the translation process. Gerunds were excluded from the study as well as participles functioning as an adjective in order to limit the study. The present study was based on Eriksson’s model and his definitions of transpositions (Eriksson 1997), which are translation shifts taking place during the translation process. The results showed that most present and past participle phrases were being replaced by relative clauses or by main clauses in Swedish. Many participle phrases were also replaced by other types of phrases or clauses.               Some transpositions were considered as being necessary. They seemed to have been imposed on the text by the inherent grammar structures of the target language, while other translation shifts appeared to be optional. In the latter case, they seemed to have been chosen rather for stylistic reasons, and/or motivated by the personal choice of the translator when several options were available.

The present study deals with the use of participle constructions, adverbs as well as the formal style of a French text about winemaking. The study aims to discuss my translation choices as well as studying participle constructions and adverbs while taking the cultural context in consideration. The results show that the use of present participle, gerund and past participle without auxiliary verbs as well as the use of adverbs in the beginning of a sentence, have a formal effect of the French text. However, the use of past participles with auxiliary verbs do not have such an effect. The cultural context is shown in the formal style due to grammatical choices and is also shown in the variety of the French wine vocabulary, much richer than the Swedish. To be adequate for the Swedish reader, the target text had to be less formal, to correspond to the Swedish tradition of writing clearly.