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Re: translation exercise

From:Philippe Caquant <herodote92@...>
Date:Sunday, January 25, 2004, 18:35
I analyse the sentence "I know who I want to take me
home" like that:

Main predicate : S = (X Takes Locutor Home)
X = Agent (human being)
To take (to escort) = verbal concept (semes: movement
+ comitative + protection)
Locutor = Patient (human being)
Home = (directional) locative complement (meaning:
Locutor’s [usual living] Place)

Adding concept of (near) future :
S -> S1 = NearFuture(S) = (HumanBeing BoundToTake
HumanLocutor To-LocutorsPlace)

Adding determiner ‘LocutorKnowsButWontTell’ (= knows +
tells not) to X: X -> X1
S2 = (X1 BoundToTake Locutor To-LocutorsPlace) =
(KnownButNotTold-HumanBeing BoundToTake HumanLocutor
To-LocutorsPlace)

Adding modality of desire, not to the whole S’, but
more specifically to X1: X2 = LocutorDesires-X1, so S2
= (Desired-KnownButNotTold-HumanBeing BoundToTake
HumanLocutor To-LocutorsPlace)

(Possibly) Adding stress of insistance on ‘desire’:
S3 = (DESIRED-KnownButNotTold-HumanBeing BoundToTake
HumanLocutor To-LocutorsPlace)
Or on ‘know’:
S4 = = (Desired-KNOWNButNotTold-HumanBeing BoundToTake
HumanLocutor To-LocutorsPlace)

--- "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...> wrote:
> > I know who I want to take me home. > > Maybe I've just been hypersensitized to complexity, > and this is > actually perfectly straightforward and transparent > to non-natives, but > it strikes me as the sort of thing that might > present translation > difficulties, and may not survive the operation as a > single sentence. > > What do you think?
===== Philippe Caquant "Le langage est source de malentendus." (Antoine de Saint-Exupery) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/

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Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>