Reference

Language structures

Many of the shifts a translator makes are not choices. They follow from two languages being built differently, and the difference is describable. This section sets out the structural parameters along which languages vary, and connects each one to the techniques it forces. Language families illustrate rather than organize: relatedness is a poor predictor of structure.

Looking for what a translator does about it, for how the concept itself is designated, for the wording that was fixed in advance, or for what the target community expects? See Translation techniques or Terminology or Phraseology or Conventions.

Translyta/Reference

Part of the Translyta reference: the linguistic foundation of our translation pipeline. New here? Start at the overview.

Category

21 entries

Morphology and the word

How much grammatical work a single word does, and how words are built and written.

Compounding and word formation

How freely a language builds new words by joining existing ones.

forces 2 techniquesHighly productive compoundingRestricted compoundingPhrasal strategies dominant

Morphological type

How much grammatical work a single word is expected to do.

forces 3 techniquesIsolatingAgglutinativeFusional

Writing systems and orthography

Which unit of language a script writes down, and what it leaves unwritten.

forces 1 techniqueAlphabeticAbjadAbugida

Clause architecture

How a clause is assembled: order, headedness, case, alignment and the means of subordination.

Basic word order

The default sequence of subject, object and verb in a plain declarative clause.

forces 2 techniquesSOVSVOVSO

Case marking

How much grammatical relation a noun carries in its own ending.

forces 2 techniquesRich case systemReduced case systemNo case marking on nouns

Head directionality

Whether a phrase puts its core element before or after what modifies it.

forces 2 techniquesHead-initialHead-finalMixed

Morphosyntactic alignment

Which arguments a language treats alike, and which one it singles out.

forces 2 techniquesNominative-accusativeErgative-absolutiveSplit ergative

Relative clauses

Where a modifying clause sits relative to its noun, and how the link is marked.

forces 2 techniquesPostnominal with relativizerPrenominalCorrelative

Subordination strategies

Whether a dependent clause keeps a finite verb or is reduced to a non-finite form.

forces 3 techniquesFinite subordinate clausesNominalized clausesConverbs

Nominal categories

The categories a noun phrase is obliged to express, and which a translator must therefore decide.

Definiteness

Whether the grammar makes you say if a noun is already known to the reader.

forces 2 techniquesDefinite and indefinite articlesDefinite article onlyAffixal article

Gender and noun class

Whether nouns are sorted into agreement classes, and how many there are.

forces 2 techniquesNo genderTwo gendersThree genders

Number and classifiers

Whether the grammar makes you commit to how many, and how counting works.

forces 2 techniquesObligatory number markingOptional number markingNumeral classifiers

Possession

How a language says that something belongs to someone.

forces 2 techniquesHave-verbBelong or exist constructionPossessive affixes

Verbal categories

What the verb is obliged to encode: time, aspect, evidence, voice, negation and person.

Evidentiality

Whether the grammar makes you state how you know what you are asserting.

forces 2 techniquesGrammaticalized evidentialityLexical evidential strategiesHearsay particle only

Negation

How a clause is negated, and whether two negatives add up or cancel out.

forces 1 techniqueNegative particleNegative affixNegative verb

Null arguments and agreement

Whether the subject can go unsaid because the verb already says who.

forces 2 techniquesConsistent null subjectPartial null subjectNo null subject

Tense and aspect

Whether the verb must locate an event in time, and how it views its shape.

forces 2 techniquesTense-prominentAspect-prominentBoth grammaticalized

Voice and valency

Which participant the verb puts in subject position, and how many it needs.

forces 2 techniquesPassiveImpersonalAntipassive

Discourse and lexicon

Parameters that operate above the clause or across the vocabulary as a whole.

Information structure

How a language signals what is already known and what is being asserted.

forces 1 techniqueSubject-prominentTopic-prominentFree order with pragmatic function

Motion and framing

Whether the path of a movement is carried by the verb or by something else.

forces 2 techniquesSatellite-framedVerb-framedEquipollently framed

Politeness and address

How a language encodes the relationship between speaker and addressee.

forces 1 techniqueT/V distinctionNo grammatical distinctionMulti-level honorifics

Language pairs, understood structurally

Knowing which shifts a pair forces is what separates a defensible translation from a fluent one. It is the basis on which Translyta’s language profiles are built.

Contact