The use of -ing and -ndo forms in sales contracts
An English-Spanish contrastive analysis
This paper analyzes the use of the -ing and -ndo forms in English and Spanish in sales contracts.
More specifically, it aims to answer three questions: 1. Do the -ing and the -ndo forms occur
more frequently in sales contracts than in general language? 2. Do English sales contracts contain more -ing
forms used in more syntactic functions than the Spanish -ndo in Spanish sales contracts? 3. Are both the
-ing forms and the -ndo forms found in all or most parts of the sales contracts retained for
this study? Our study is based on two comparable corpora of English and Spanish: a legal corpus containing sales contracts, and a
general corpus. Our corpora provide the following answers to the questions posed: 1. Both the -ing and the
-ndo forms occur more frequently in sales contracts than in general language; 2. There are more
-ing forms in English sales contracts than there are -ndo forms in Spanish sales contracts,
but in both cases, they are used in a variety of syntactic functions; 3. Both the -ing forms and the
-ndo forms are found in most parts of the sales contracts used in this study.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.-ing forms and -ndo forms: Uses and functions
- 2.1-ing forms in English
- 2.2-ndo forms in Spanish
- 3.The genre of sales contracts
- 4.Methodology
- 4.1Establishing two comparable corpora
- 4.1.1Comparable corpus of sales contracts
- 4.1.2Comparable corpus of general texts
- 4.2Method of analysis
- 5.Results
- 6.Analysis
- 6.1Frequency of use
- 6.2Morphological types
- 6.2.1-ing forms in English
- 6.2.2-ndo forms
- 6.3Distribution of -ing and -ndo forms in sales contracts
- 6.3.1-ing forms in English sales contracts
- 6.3.2-ndo forms in Spanish sales contracts
- 7.Conclusions
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References
References (35)
References
Alcaraz, E., Campos, M. A. and Miguélez, C. 2007. El Inglés Jurídico Norteamericano. Barcelona: Ariel.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bello, A. 1982. Gramática de la Lengua Española. Madrid: Colección EDAF Universitaria.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Biber, D. 1993. Representativeness in Corpus Design. Literary and Linguistic Computing, 8 (4): 243–257. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bobes Naves, M. C. 1975. Sistema. Norma y Uso del Gerundio Castellano. REL, 751:1–25.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Borja Albí, A. 2000. El Texto Jurídico Inglés y su Traducción al Español. Barcelona: Ariel.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bowker, L. and Pearson, J. 2002. Working with Specialized Language: A Practical Guide to Using Corpora. London: Routledge. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Chomsky, N. 1970. Remarks on Nominalization. In Jacobs, P. S., and Rosenbaum, R. A. (eds), Readings in English Transformational Grammar, 184–221. Massachusetts: Ginn Waltham.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Diaz del Campo Lozano, J. 2015. El Abuso del Gerundio en el Lenguaje Jurídico. Unirrevista. Available at [URL]. [Last access 17 July 2017].
Eagels. [URL] [Last access 13 July 2017].
Haigh, R. 2009. Legal English. London: Routledge.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Huddleston, R. and Pullum, G. K. 2002. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Janigová, S. 2008. Syntax of -ing Forms. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lee, S. A. 2007. -ing Forms and the Progressive Puzzle: A Construction Based Approach to the English Progressives. Journal of Linguistics, 43(1): 120–147. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Legal Encyclopedia. [URL]. [Last access 28 July 2017].
López Arroyo, B. and Roberts, R. P. 2017. Genre and Register in Comparable Corpora: An English/Spanish Contrastive Analysis. Meta, 62 (1): 114–136. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Maley, Y. 1994.
The Language of the Law
. In Language and the Law, J. Gibbons (ed.), 11–50. London: Longman.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
McEnery, T. and Hardie, A. 2012. Corpus Linguistics: Method, Theory & Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Nueva Gramática de la Lengua Española. 2009. Madrid: Espasa.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Pierce, J. E. 1969. A Look at the “So-Called” –ing Forms in Legal English”. Linguistics, 501:59–69.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Pina, M. P. and Campos, R. 2004. Changing a Cultural Grammar? The Pressure Towards the Adoption of “Northern Time” by Southern European Managers. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 10 (8): 795–808. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. and Svartvik, J. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Sager, J. C., Dungworth, D. and McDonald, P. F. 1980. English Special Languages. Wiesbaden: Branstetter Verlag.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Suárez Caballero, J. J. 2005–2006. El Gerundio en el Lenguaje Administrativo. Boletín Milagros Calvo, 24–25: 221–246.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Swales, J. 1990. Genre Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Swales, J. 2002. Research Genres. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Swan, M. 2009. Practical English Usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Torro, N. 2012. Un Breve Estudio sobre el Gerundio en Textos Jurídicos. Buenos Aires: Colegio de Traductores Públicos.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Triesma, P. 2000. Legal Language. Chicago. Chicago University Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Triesma, P. 2015. Excerpt from A History of the Language of Law. Sloan, Ainsworth and Shuy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1–37.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Váquez y del Árbol, E. 2007. El tiempo verbal en textos jurídicos y su traducción jurada al inglés. Sendebar, 181: 99–107.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Vilches Vivancos, F. and Sarmiento González, R. 2016. El lenguaje jurídico administrativo. Madrid: Dykinson.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Williams, C. 2007. Tradition and Change in Legal English. Verbal Constructions in Prescriptive Texts. New York: Peter Lang.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Wiredu, F. J. 2016. The Complex Sentence in Legal English. A Study of Law Reports. Journal of Literature, Languages and Linguistics, 221: 29–41.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cited by (2)
Cited by two other publications
López Arroyo, Belén & Lucía Sanz Valdivieso
López Arroyo, Belén & Leticia Moreno Pérez
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.