I CAN’T SEEM TO FIND MY GLASSES – THE ENGLISH VERB SEEM AND ITS MACEDONIAN TRANSLATION

  • Marija Kusevska
Keywords: translation, culture, evidentiality, epistemic modality

Abstract

This paper discusses the verb seem and its translation equivalents in Macedonian. Seem is a multifunctional verb. As a copula verb, it is a verb of indirect perception. It may also mark the verb phrase for evidentiality and epistemic modality. In other cases, seem may also function as a hedge, which is a pragmatic function of linguistic means that allows the speaker not to express the commitment categorically. Because of its multiple functions, seem has different translations in Macedonian. The most widespread are congruent correspondences, when seem is translated with a corresponding verb (се чини, изгледа, личи), and zero correspondences, when it is dropped. This variety may also appear due to different cultural attitudes towards evidence.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Aijmer, Karin. 2009. Seem and evidentiality. Functions of Language 16 (1). John Benjamins Publishing Company: Amsterdam and Philadelphia. 63-88.
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2004. Evidentiality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y., and R.M.W. Dixon. 2003. Studies in Evidentiality. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Berk, Lynn M. 1999. English syntax-From word to discourse. New York: Oxford university press.
Biber, Douglas. et al. [1999] 2007. Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Harlow: Perrson Education Limited.
Chafe, Wallace. 1986. Evidentiality in English conversation and academic writing. In Evidentiality: The linguistic coding of episemology. Wallace Chafe and Johanna Nichols, ed. Norwood and New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation. 261-272.
Cornillie, Bert. 2009. Evidentiality and epistemic modality: On the close relationship between two different categories. Functions of Language 16 (1). John Benjamins Publishing Company: Amsterdam and Philadelphia. 44–62.
Dixon, R. M. W. 2005. A Semantic Approach to English Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fetzer, Anita. 2014. Foregrounding evidentiality in (English) academic discourse: Patterned co-occurrences of the sensory perception verbs seem and appear. Intercultural Pragmatics 11(3). De Gruyter Mouton: Berlin. 333-355.
Frajzyngier, Zigmund. 1985. Truth and the indicative sentence. Studies in Language 9 (2). John Benjamins Publishing Company: Amsterdam and Philadelphia. 243-254.
Fraser, B. 2010. Pragmatic competence: The case of hedging. In New Approaches to Hedging. Gunther Kaltenböck and Walter Mihatsch and Stefan Schneider, ed. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited. 15-34.
Gisborne, Nikolas. Holmes, Jasper. 2007. A history of English evidential verbs of appearance. English Language and Linguistics 11 (1). Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. 1-29.
Hyland, Ken. 1998. Hedging in Scientific Research Articles. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Johansson, Stig. 2007. Seeing through multilingual corpora: On the case of corpora in contrastive studies. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Lampert, Günther. Lampert, Martina. 2010. Where does evidentiality reside? Notes on (alleged) limiting cases: seem and be like. Language typology and universals (STUF) 63-4. Akademie Verlag: Berlin. 308-321.
Rowling, J. K. 1998. Harry Potter and the sorcerer’s stone. New York: Scholastic Press, a division of Scholastic Inc.
Squartini, Mario. 2018. Extragrammatical Expression of Information Source. In The Oxford Handbook of Evidentiality. Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 273-285.
Usonienė, Aurelija. 2003. Extension of meaning: verbs of perception in English and Lithuanian. In Meaning Through Language Contrast: The Cambridge Papers, Volume 1. Katarzyna M. Jaszczolt and Ken Turner, ed. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. 193–220.
Usonienė, Aurelija. Šinkūnienė, Jolanta. 2013. A cross-linguistic look at the multifunctionality of the English verb seem. In English modality: Core, Periphery and Evidentiality. Juana I. Marín-Arrese, et al., ed. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter. 281–316.
Whitt, Richard J. 2010. Evidentiality and Perception Verbs in English and German. Bern: Peter Lang AG, International Academic Publishers, Bern 2010.
Wiemer, Björn. 2018. Evidentials and Epistemic Modality. In The Oxford Handbook of Evidentiality. Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 85-108.
Zhang, Grace. 2011. Elasticity of vague language. Intercultural Pragmatics 8 (4). De Gruyter Mouton: Berlin. 571–599.
Роулинг, Џ.К. 2001. Хари Потер и каменот на мудроста. Превод на Благородна Богеска-Анчевска. Скопје: Култура.
Published
2020-11-08
How to Cite
Kusevska, M. (2020). I CAN’T SEEM TO FIND MY GLASSES – THE ENGLISH VERB SEEM AND ITS MACEDONIAN TRANSLATION. Philological Studies, 18(2), 75-90. Retrieved from http://194.149.137.236/index.php/philologicalstudies/article/view/1445
Section
The 'word' in Historical-Cultural Contexts