Ways of translating gerundial complexes/constructions

Exercise 15. State the function of the gerundial complex in each sentence and then translate the sentences into Ukrainian.

1. A good speaker, besides choosing appropriate terms from a wide vocabulary, and besides being able to utter his thoughts with fluency, uses correct sounds and employs proper intonation. 2. According to the ancient story, Tantalus was punished for a crime by being made to suffer from thirst and hunger, while water and fruit were seemingly within his reach. 3. All the evidence of past words and deeds is against such agreement being possible. 4. Arnold Bennet is interested not in philosophy, but in giving a realistic account of the lives of ordinary people. 5. But if this experiment fails then it is my opinion that, far from there being an improvement in the standards of life of our people, there will be a steady diminu­tion. 6. Conditions of the time (end of the 18th century) led to the need for quicker communication between the towns, and this naturally led also to the literature being spread more quickly than would have been possible before. 7. In addition to being both creative writer and critic he is also a scholar. 8. More troops going there will only make things worse. 9. Refusal to do this work resulted in two men being suspended and strike ac­tion followed. 10. The high quality of style has proved sufficient to give this work a high rank amongst the Japanese classics, and has insured its being handed down to our day as a most esteemed model for the composition in the native Japanese style. 11. The most important cause of a language splitting into dialects is not purely physical, but want of communication for whatever reason. 12. The western powers were opposed to the idea of disarmament being dis­cussed at the General Assembly, but the heads of their governments were, in fact, compelled to attend the Assembly. 13. There are many new terms, some of which are in everybody’s mouth, and are used by the man in the street without any suspicion crossing his mind of their learned origin. 14. This fact is due not so much to the mammoth and rhinoceros becoming gradually scarcer as to the change in the method of hunting. 15. What police described as ‘appalling’ weather conditions prevented the two helicopters borrowed from the Army taking part in the search. 16. “I don’t know that I should altogether ap­prove of your having animated conversations with ladies, while you’re having your bath”. 17. “I couldn’t bear to think of your hav­ing to throw away your good money on tips”. 18. We were astonished by the policeman’s tak­ing down names with such correction and sweat in a little book. (Greene) 19. Speaking without thinking is shooting without aiming. (Cronin) 20. His father, not liking the idea of his going on the stage, had insisted on it. 21. A feeling of its being too dangerous to take a step in any direction had fallen on them all. (Galsworthy) 22. Alice laughed so much at this that she had to run back into the wood for fear of their hearing her. (Caldwell)

Exercise 16. Translate into Ukrainian the following sentences with the gerundial complexes.

1. Alfred then took steps to prevent the Danes from ever becoming dangerous again. 2. As Somerset Maugham is difficult to classify either by the literary forms he uses or by the kind of reader he engages, it may be worth while trying another approach. 3. At the beginning of the period, the poets follow the teaching of Dryden in attending more to the method of expressing their ideal than to the ideas themselves. 4. But when a nation thus speaking a variety of dialects attains a high degree of civilization, that unity and centralization which results in one town becoming the capital, results also in one definite dialect – generally, of course, that of the capital itself – being used as the general means of communication through the whole territory, especially, as is generally the case, the dialects have already diverged so much from each other that some at least of them are mutually unintelligible. 5. Exeter, the ancient capital of Devonshire, is a lovely city, proud of being the only English town that has been lived in continuously since the time of the Romans. 6. He held office of the most important judge in England for four years, and might have held it longer, but that he was accused of taking bribes. 7. I am told that he has never wanted to learn Chinese as a language, that he does not speak it and has little interest in hearing it spoken. 8. If a word refers to some person or thing without giving a name to the person or thing referred to, the word is a pronoun. 9. In estimating these poems we should make ourselves aware of the literary situation wherein they were written. 10. In presenting the above facts I have had in mind letting the non-assyrologist know what a change the discovery of a few tablets in the Amorita land has brought about. 11. In some cases I contented myself with giving the bare references without printing the sentences in full. 12. Man alone has succeeded in impressing his stamp on nature, not only by shifting the plant and animal world from one place to another, but also by so altering the aspect and climate of his dwelling place, and even the plants and animals themselves, that the consequences of his activity can disappear only with the general extinction of the terrestrial globe. 13. Scientific discoveries affected intellectual life by overthrowing many of the old ideas respecting the world and nature. 14. The exhibition of any genuine passion or of any imagination would have seemed to the cultured gallants of that age a sign of vulgarity. The only quality worth possessing was considered to be ‘the plain good sense’. 15. The historian, according to the critics, sinned against the past by giving it an order and a symmetry which it did not possess. Instead of reliving history, he recreated it. 16. The investigation aims at establishing historical results regarding settlement and economic and social life. 17. The island is unique in having a sandy shore and is surrounded by an amphitheatre of low hills. 18. The novelist can similarly tell a story without laying claim to having witnessed or participated in what he narrates. 19. The Stoics began by asserting the equality of slaves and free men, but they never drew the obvious conclusion that slavery should therefore be abolished. 20. These inventions, far from being used for the benefit of mankind, were employed by the priests of Egypt to simulate miracles, and so, by facilitating a pious fraud on the faithful, to assist in the secular struggle of superstition against reason. 21. Those who find no intellectual pleasure in reading foreign languages, or perhaps even in trying to read them, must admit that some ability to do so is of practical value. 22. Wayland Smith was a personage known as intimately to our Anglo-Saxon forebears as, say, Robin Hood is known to us. The mention of his name was enough to call up to them stories attached to it without their ever needing to be told.