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 Verb, which do not have direct correspondences in Ukrainian:

I like watching her dance. (G.Green. The Quiet American)	Я люблю дивитись, як вона танцює.
I ever even once saw him brush his teeth.	Я не бачив, щоб він чистив зуби. (Селінджер).
You could see the teams bashing each other all over the place.	Видно було,як обидві команди ганяють одна одну з кінця в кінець.
He really felt pretty lousy about flunking me.	Йому було страшенно кепсько через те, що він мене провалив.

In other instances such transformations are caused by stylistic reasons:

They looked sort of poor.

Видно було, що вони досить бідні.

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

It was the Saturday of the football game with Saxon Hall.	Почалося це в суботу, коли йшов футбольний матч з Сексен Холлом.
At that moment the door was opened by the maid.	Двері відчинились, і зазирнула покоївка.

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”:

That was a long time ago. It seemed like fifty years ago. (Sal. The catcher...)	Це було давно – здавалось, що пройшло років з п’ятдесят.
The only thing that worried me was our front door. It creaks like a bastard.	Єдине мене тривожило – наші парадні двері скриплять як дурні.

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

I figured I probably wouldn’t see him again till Christmas vacation started. (Sal. The Catcher...)	Я зрозумів, що до початку різдвяних канікул я його не побачу.
It as pretty nice to get back to my room, after I left old Spencer.	Приємно було від старого Спенсера потрапити до себе в кімнату...
Even though it was so late, old Ernie’s was jam-packed.	Навіть у таку пізню годину в Ерні було повно людей.
It was so dark I couldn’t see her.	Я не міг бачити її в темряві.

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 the pamflet on Chile published by the Communist Party after the coup last September, the CIA plot against the Allende government was exposed and condemned at a time when The Times was publishing articles by apologists for the Chile junta and the Daily Telegraph was sneering at “those who will soon be manufacturing ingenious theories of CIA involvement”. (MS)

У брошурі про становище в Чилі, яку випустила компартія після перевороту у вересні минулого року, була розвінчана й осуджена змова ЦРУ проти уряду Альєнде. У той самий час „Таймз“ публікувала статті апологетів чилійської хунти, а „Дейлі Телеграф“ іронізував з тих, „хто незабаром буде фабрикувати хитромудрі теорії про втручання ЦРУ“.

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:

You couldn’t see the grandstand too hot, but you could hear them all yelling, deep and terrific on the Pencey side, because practically the whole school except me was there (Sal.)

Трибун як слід розгледіти я не міг, тільки чув, як там кричать. На нашій стороні верещали на все горло – там зібралась уся школа, крім мене.

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