Aspektualitet i fransk og dansk

Ontologiske aftryk i leksikalsk og grammatisk struktur

Abstract

This article examines aspectuality in Danish by analyzing the translated forms of the French dynamic verbs in a translation of the first chapter of Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. The rather systematic distinction between homogenous and non-homogenous dynamic verbs in French (that is, activity verbs vs. action verbs) is based on aspectuality, and the study takes this distinction as a potential indicator of expressions of aspectuality in Danish. First, all of the simple verbs of the source text were coded for their aktionsart and their morphological aspect in order to analyze their forms in the Danish target text. The translations of dynamic verbs took form in Danish as simple predicates, complex predicates, and different types of constructions. Especially notable were the complex predicates as they were systematically distributed between homogenous and non-homogenous dynamic verbs, implying their aspectual marking. The aspectual nature of actions was expressed by a wide range of syntactic means in the Danish translation, and it was thus difficult to identify a systematic formal difference between homogenous and non-homogenous actions. This grammatical difference from French reflects that Danish lexemes are aspectually unmarked, contrary to French lexemes. The article concludes that the aspectual distinction of actions in Danish is scalar as opposed to the polar distinction in French. However, it is argued that the Danish language does display a general binary difference between homogenous and non-homogenous actions in that forms that represent non-homogenous actions are more likely to be aspectually marked; in accordance with the iconic principle, their more complex form reflects their more complex content.