Structural and Formal Constructions of Translating the Attributive Phrases of the Story “A Matter of Life and Death” by Les Martovych into English

Abstract

The study deals with the translation of attributive constructions featured in the story “A Matter of Life and Death” by Les Martovych into English. The paper focuses on the ways of rendering adjectival lexemes as semantic-syntactic attributive components of the nominal group, their taxonomy by means of Gordon Tucker’s systemic functional approach and the relation between the elements of the quality or quantity group and the word with respect to William McGregor’s typology of syntagmatic relations. Roma Franko achieved the comprehensive rendering of various adnominal attributive modifiers through a variety of ways. To translate syntagmas with associative (classification) attributive adjectives and nouns in the attributive function, Ms Franko addresses herself to five structural-formal constructions that are topically related to the domain of community administration and identify socially privileged classes. Two structures furnish for gradual adjectives of the quality group. Twenty structures render attributive relations, where adjectival lexemes refer to one or more features of the property described. The use of attributive constructions, which are the result of unfolding of the denotative meaning of the nominal lexeme of the source language in the translation, has been commented. The findings of the study will serve to those involved in the synchronic-comparative study of language systems, the study of the Ukrainian writer’s signature world-view for the purposes of producing fiction translation, as well as at analyzing semantic and grammatical features of the attributive adjectives. The prospect of future studies may include comparing the translation of attributive phrases of the story into German.