Diss.--Université d'Utrecht, 1991.

Texte remanié de: Diss.--Philosophische Fakultät--Köln--Universität, 1994.

What explains the shape of Zauzou noun phrases? Zauzou (Trans-Himalayan, China) noun phrases exhibit considerable diversity in both the choice of the phrase's primary reference type, and the presence of classifiers, demonstratives, modifiers, and case marking. This investigation uses a large, previously existing Zauzou textual corpus. The corpus was annotated for variables hypothesized to predict the variation in noun phrase form. Syntactic variables investigated include word order, subordination, subordinate role, and a new variable called "loneliness." Participant semantic variables include thematic role, agency, and affectedness. Referential semantic variables include boundedness, number, and animacy. The information packaging variable investigated is accessibility. Statistical analysis of the corpus revealed that case marking was predicted using a variable called "loneliness." This is where a multivalent verb has only one argument that is explicitly referenced in the clause. Lonely noun phrases are more likely to be case marked. The role of loneliness in motivating case marking confirms that disambiguation can be an explanation for differential case marking. Animacy and accessibility are important predictors of noun phrase weight. Overall, high animacy and high accessibility correspond to reduced noun phrase weight. Agency and thematic role were also significant variables. The Zauzou data makes clear that speech act participants occupy a unique role in the animacy hierarchy. Speech act participants are often unexpectedly light upon first mention, being referred to with a pronoun or zero anaphor. They are often unexpectedly heavy while highly activated, remaining a pronoun instead of reducing to a zero anaphor. Zauzou, like Mandarin and Cantonese, allows classifiers to be used with a noun but without a numeral. In Mandarin, this construction is used only with new or generic noun phrases. In Cantonese, this construction can be used with noun phrases of any accessibility value. Zauzou occupies a unique intermediate position. In Zauzou, a noun with bare noun phrase can occur with new or old noun phrases, but rarely with active ones. This thesis provides evidence for the importance of text corpora. Using a corpus allowed for the simultaneous inclusion of many variables as well as the consideration of genre effects. In addition, the annotated corpus produced in this investigation is an important output; it is available in the supplemental materials accompanying this thesis.

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.

Cette thèse est une investigation de la structure syntaxique et de l'interprétation modale des phrases impliquant le modal dénominal de nécessité behar ‘devoir, falloir, avoir besoin’ et un complément infinitif. La thèse analyse le statut syntaxique des compléments non finis du verbe modal denominal behar en examinant leur interaction avec des phénomènes syntaxiques sensibles à des conditions structurelles et de localité diverses, et conclut que les compléments d’infinitif de behar peuvent correspondre à différentes structures sous-jacentes. Le type d'infinitif le plus complexe du point de vue structurel est un infinitif non-restructurant qui projette une architecture de phrase complète (c.-à-d. une CP), et le plus petit est un infinitif réduit de restructuration qui projette une structure de phrase de niveau vP. Il y a des preuves pour l'existence des types intermédiaires projetant jusqu'au domaine flexionnel (IP / TP). D'autre part, la thèse examine les propriétés thématiques et de portée des sujets dans chacun des différents types structurels et l'interprétation modale à laquelle elles donnent cours. Sur la base de cette analyse, la thèse soutient que l'interprétation modale n'est déterminée par aucun facteur en particulier (la présence de la restructuration, le statut référentiel du sujet et sa portée relative vis-à-vis du prédicat modal, parmi d'autres fréquemment mentionnés), mais dépend de l'effet cumulatif de plusieurs facteurs travaillant ensemble. La thèse montre également la nécessité d'adopter une vision plus fine de la modalité radicale (root modality), qui permet une association plus simple entre structures syntaxiques et significations modales. / This dissertation is an investigation of the syntactic structure and modal interpretation of clauses involving the denominal necessity predicate behar ‘need’ and an infinitival complement. On the one hand, it analyses the syntactic status of non-finite complements of denominal behar by examining their interaction with syntactic phenomena sensitive to different structural and locality conditions, and concludes that the infinitival complements of behar can correspond to different underlying structures. The largest type of infinitive is a non-restructuring infinitive that projects a full clausal architecture (i.e. a CP), and the smallest one is a reduced restructuring infinitive that projects up to vP. There is evidence for intermediate types projecting up to the inflectional domain (IP/TP). On the other hand, the dissertation examines the thematic and scope properties of the subjects in each of the different structural types and the modal interpretation that they can give rise to. On the basis of this analysis it is argued that modal interpretation is not constrained by any single factor (the presence of restructuring, the referential status of the subject and its relative scope vis-à-vis the modal predicate, among other frequently mentioned ones), but depends on the cumulative effect of several factors working together. The dissertation also shows the necessity of adopting a more fine-grained view of root modality, one that allows a simpler mapping of syntactic structures into modal meanings.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate the translation stategies chosen by the translator when translating present and past participles in contracted sentences in a French scientific article into Swedish. Previous research shows that the French language has a predilection for an elliptical sentences structure, whereas the Swedish language prefers complete clauses. This difference could eventually cause problems during the translation process when translating the French present and past participles in contracted sentences into Swedish. The source text has been translated into Swedish. The translation of the participles has then been categorized according to the strategy chosen by the translator and then analyzed according to the theoretical models by Eriksson (1997, 2015) and Ingo (2007). Our study shows that the majority of the present and past participles in contracted sentences in the source text has been translated into complete causes in the target text. The relative clause seems to be the most common choice by the translator. However, other strategies have sometimes been chosen, often as a consequence of an already complicated sentence structure in the target text or due to stylistic choices.