Exercises

Exercise 1

Translate into Ukrainian. Mind the syntactic functions of the infinitive.

1. The two girls thought it would be a good idea to dress in their best.

2. It made us all realize how much Mother had done for us for years.

3. Thank you for your very kind invitation to visit you and stay with you but we are unlikely to have our holiday in summer.

4. He went quickly to the bathroom and returned to find Murphy sitting beside his bed.

5. The man was not one to think rapidly.

6. He was too astonished to speak.

7. To make a long story short, the company broke up.

8. He made a supreme effort to break it.

9. She read three chapters to find only five new words.

10. He waved his hands as if to express his intense distaste.

Exercise 2

Translate into Ukrainian. Name the infinitive constructions. Mind their syntactic functions.

1. She seemed to be paying no attention to what was going on around her.

2. It would be practically impossible for me to do it.

3. Never in my life I’ll choose such a man to be my husband.

4. This problem is for you to solve all by yourself.

5. We happened to see each other at the supermarket.

6. He seems to be satisfied to be doing nothing.

7. Mr Chesterfield completely disapproves of the idea of the children staying there for the night.

8. The river was reported to have overflown the banks and to have advanced towards the suburbs of the city.

9. He stepped back to have a better view of what was going on.

10. He was reported to have joined the enemy.

Lecture 5

Ways of Conveying the Meaning of the Gerund and Its Constructions

The problems for discussion:

1. The gerund, the general notion.

2. Ways of translating a single gerund.

3. Peculiarities of translating the gerund as an adverbial modifier.

4. Ways of rendering gerundial constructions.

Background for discussion:

1. The gerund, its tense and voice distinctions.

2. Syntactic functions of the gerund.

3. The gerund as an adverbial modifier.

4. The ways of expressing the nominal part of the gerundial construction.

5. Syntactic functions of the gerundial construction

1. The gerund, the general notion.

The gerund is a non-finite form of the English verb which names an action without pointing out person and number. The gerund has derived from the noun and the verb and, as a result of its origin, it has a double nature. The double nature of the gerund is demonstrated by its typically nominal syntactic functions of subject, object, and predicative.

E.g. Smoking is a bad habit. (subject)

He is fond of telling stories. (object)

Their duty is completing the task in time. (predicative)

The verbal character of the gerund can be seen from its ability to take a direct object, to be modified by an adverb, and to express tense and voice distinctions in the Indefinite and Perfect forms of the Active and Passive voice.

E.g. He dislikes doing such things. (direct object)

I hate the work being done carelessly. (an adverb)

Tense / voice	Active	Passive
Indefinite	washing	being washed
Perfect	having washed	having been washed

The problem with translating the gerund is that we have no corresponding verbal in Ukrainian. As a result, we use in Ukrainian translation different ways which seem to be appropriate in each particular case. In general, the translation of the English gerund into Ukrainian depends on its paradigmatic form and syntactic function. So, the gerund can be translated into Ukrainian by

1. a noun

E.g. Swimming is very useful for your health. Плавання дуже корисне для здоров’я.

2. an infinitive

E.g. Jane likes reading adventure stories. Джейн любить читати пригодницькі оповідання.

3. a participial phrase

E.g. He passed without glancing at me. Він пройшов, не глянувши на мене.

4. a subordinate clause

E.g. You can’t go there without being invited. Ти не підеш туди, якщо тебе не запросять.