Syntactical Replacements in a Compound Sentence

In the structure of compound sentence the following types of syntactical transformations are most often observed:

1) replacement of a simple sentence by a compound one and visa versa;

2) replacement of a main sentence by a subordinate one and visa versa;

3) replacement of a subordination by coordination and visa versa;

5) replacement of syndeton connection by asyndeton and visa versa.

1.a. This transformation is often necessary for rendering English predicative or “half-predicative” constructions with non-personal forms of a verb, which do not have direct correspondences in Ukrainian:

In other instances such transformations are caused by stylistic reasons:

The variant „Вони виглядали досить бідно” is possible, but stylistically the first one is more acceptable.

Here the last sentence undergoes the following transformations in translation:

1) simple sentence is replaced by a compound one;

2) subordination is replaced by a coordination;

3) lexical-grammatical replacement is taking place: active — passive (was opened —відчинились);

4) indirect object with preposition by is replaced by subject (maid);

5) the word зазирнула is added;

6) the words at that moment are left out.

The attempt to preserve the initial construction would have resulted in the grammatically accessible, but stylistically very little acceptable phrase: У цей момент двері були відчинені служницею.

A special type of the transformation indicated is joining up two simple sentences into one compound sentence — the so called “sentence amalgamation”:

1.b. The transformation of replacing a compound sentence by a simple one is reversible to the previous one:

1.c. A special type of a given transformation is a so called “sentence splitting” — division of one compound (more rarely — simple sentence) into two or more simple ones. English is characterized by using long sentences with many subordinate clauses and/or participial constructions. Ukrainian press style is characterized, on the contrary, by the attempt or striving to short sentences, which contain informational material:

In translation sometimes one has to resort to splitting and amalgamating sentences at the same time. In the following example one sentence is split into two sentences, the part of the second portion (clause) of the English sentence is transferred into a second one (independent) sentence of the Ukrainian text, i.e. amalgamated with the third part. This transposition is necessary in order to achieve semantic and syntactical “balance” of two Ukrainian sentences:

17.5. Replacement of a Main Sentence
by a Subordinate One and Visa Versa

17.6. Replacement of Subordination by Coordination
and Visa Versa

Both in English and Ukrainian sentences can be connected with each other by means of coordination and subordination. Though for Ukrainian (especially for oral colloquial) predominance of coordinate constructions is more characteristic, in English — subordinate constructions prevail and more often met than in Ukrainian. Therefore in translating from English into Ukrainian replacement of subordinate sentences by coordinate ones often takes place:

(Pay attention to the fact, that replacing subordination by coordination in most cases is combined with replacing syndeton by asyndeton).

In the next example replacement of subordination by coordination is combined with transformation of a compound sentence into a simple one with homogeneous predicates:

Stradlater kept whistling “Song of India” while he shaved.

Стедлейтер голився й насвистував „Індійську пісеньку“.

Replacement of subordination by coordination (including asyndeton) may have place within a simple sentence:

I lived in the Ossenburger Memorial Wing of the new dorms.

Я жив у корпусі імені Оссенбергера, у новому гуртожитку.

In translating from Ukrainian into English, on the contrary, coordination, is replaced by subordination:

У столику знайшов папірчика листочок, а на папірчику написано (Ф. Достоєвський)

Also, on the table I found a scrap of paper which had written on it...

Забирай його, диявола, уб’ю! (Горький)

Take that devil out of here before I kill it!...

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