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The Expression of Tense, Aspect, Modality and Evidentiality in Albert Camus’s L'Étranger and Its Translations / L'Étranger de Camus et ses traductions : questions de temps, d'aspect, de modalité et d'évidentialité (TAME): An empirical study / Etude empirique
Edited by Eric Corre, Danh Thành Do-Hurinville and Huy Linh Dao
[Lingvisticæ Investigationes Supplementa 35] 2020
► pp. 161–184

Chapter 9
Imperfectivity in L’Étranger in French, English, Breton

| University Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3

Cross-linguistically, progressive constructions, a sub-category of imperfectives, often have a locative origin, but they take on a host of language-specific meanings. This corpus-based study focuses on the narrative and descriptive modes in English and Breton translations of the novel: in both languages, the progressive is analyzed as a stativizing operator (De Swart, 1998; Michaelis, 2004, 2016), which gives rise to backgrounding and subjective uses. However whereas English has a general purpose simple past alongside the progressive, Breton has an imperfect and a progressive. The purpose of the paper is to provide a fine-grained analysis of the similarities and differences of a superficially similar form, taking into account the competing tense-aspect possibilities offered by two unrelated languages.

Keywords: imperfective aspect, progressive, imperfect, simple past, stativizing operator
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Presentation of the method and definitions
    • 2.1Method
    • 2.2Definitions: Imperfective, Progressive
      • 2.2.1Common definitions
      • 2.2.2The Breton prog
  • 3.Frequencies and cross-linguistic differences
    • 3.1Multilingual perspective
    • 3.2Monolingual perspective
      • 3.2.1English: Variations in the use of progs
      • 3.2.2Breton: A “fake” progressive construction
  • 4.Comparative analysis of the English and the Breton progressives
    • 4.1The English prog and its Breton translations
    • 4.2The Breton prog and its English translations
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 11 August 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lis.35.09cor
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Maroiu, Amelia-Diana
2022. Review of Temporality in Romanian Editions of The Stranger by Albert Camus. Transilvania ► pp. 46 ff. DOI logo

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