CONSTRUCTIONS/PREDICATIVE COMPLEXES

WITH THE INFINITIVE

WAYS OF TRANSLATING THE OBJECTIVE

Exercise II. Identify the function of the infinitival for-phrase and translate each sentence below into Ukrainian.

1. For me to ask would be treason; and for me to be told would be treason. (M.Wilson) 2. For you to come here is impossible. 3. «For me to discover England to him,» she thought, «for him to discover the East to me.» (Galsworthy) 4. It was impossible for me now to persuade myself that this urgent desire of his to dispense hospitality was disinterested. 5.... It was out of the question for him to absent himself for any length of time. 6. It would have been easy for him to get out of it. 7. It seemed a good opportunity for Julia to get away. (Maugham) 8. It would be better for us to leave him. (Wilde) 9. It was not unknown for small boys to enter a monastery. (Ken Follett) 10. It was so easy for a young man of his looks and character to be led astray by evil woman. (Dreiser) 11. There was need for him to be economical. 12. It seems so babyish for me to be young to night school. (London) 13. It is for me to thank you. 14. «The simplest thing,» said Fleur, «is for him to resign at once». (Galsworthy). 15. «That is for me to decide, is it not?» (C.Doyle) 16. He wants me to do something pleasant - for him to feel better.» (Maugham) 17. All he wanted desperately now... was for their child to live. (A. Hailey) 18. «What is there for me to do, except one thing?» (J. Conrad) 19. Rosemary looked for a place to sit. (Fitzgerald) 20. David had decided to let him wait for his seventeenth birthday to come. 21. We think it natural for parents to want their children to conform to a pattern they understand. 22. David prayed nightly for her and Blaise to come back. (I.Murdoch) 23. I'll try and arrange for you to see him at Mount Street. (Galsworthy) 24. He sat

there in the little hot office waiting jor one of us to speak. (Greene) 25. She also asked for more women to be appointed news-readers. (M. Guardian) 26.1 sometimes think it is a shame for people to spend so much money this way. (Dreiser) 27.1 bought something for you to read. 28. «It's not a bad thing for you to judge others by yourself». (Maugham) 29. There was milk in the ice-chest for her to drink.(Cusack) 30. And there was a child's shirt in the living-room waiting for a button to be sewn on. (Greene) 31. Arrangements are being made for the girl to be taken back to her own country. (M. Guardian) 32. Dr. Saunders stopped for us to join him. (Maugham) 33. But five minutes was enough for them to understand one another. (Cronin)

Unlike the polyfunctional for-to-infinitive constructions, the ob­jective with the infinitive complexes can have mostly one function in the sentence - that of the complex object. Despite this the semantic equivalents of this construction in Ukrainian are often different. The choice of the Ukrainian semantic equivalent is predetermined by some factors, the main of which are as follows: a) the lexical meaning of the finite verb after which the objective with the infinitive construction is used; b) the paradigmatic form of the infinitive (its categorial mean­ing); c) the lexical meaning of the objective infinitive. As a result, different semantic and structural equivalents may be used in Ukrain­ian as substitutes for this predicative complex. The choice of the appropriate language unit/sense unit may often rest with the transla­tor only or it may be predetermined by the structural peculiarity of the sentence under translation. The most common ways of translating the objective with the infinitive constructions are the following:

1. By means of a subordinate clause:
«Do you want me to take Ви хочете, щоб я їх

these (slides) a way?» (Hailey) (діапозитиви) забрав?

Everyone watched him walk Усі спостерігали, як він іде

across the garden. (D. Lessing) садком/переходить садок.

Depending on the predicate verb, the objective with the infiniive construction may be rendered into Ukrainian with the help of an infini­tive or a subordinate clause:

He ordered the cabman to Він наказав кучерові їхати/

drive on. (London) щоб він їхав далі.

2. By means of an objective infinitival word-group forming part
of the compound modal verbal predicate (like in English):

I rather wanted to be a painter У дитинстві я бажав

when I was a boy, but my father стати художником, але

made me go into business, батько змусив мене піти в

(Maugham) бізнес.

Slowly, economically, he got Повільно, збираючись з

dressed and forced himself to силами, він одягнувся і змусив

walk. (Lawrence) себе йти.

3. By means of a noun derived from the objective infinitive (an
alternative way of translation) or an object clause:

He heard the blackbird sing. Він чув спів дрозда.

Не had expected him to be Він очікував від нього

more sympathetic. (Maugham) більше співчуття.

The objective with the infinitive construction in the above-given sentence may naturally be translated with the help of the subordinate clause: Він очікував, шо той виявить більше співчуття/що той буде співчутливішим.

4. By means of a phrasal/simple verbal predicate:

The champagne and the alti- Від шампанського й висоти

tude made him sleep. (Hailey) його хилило до сну/йому

хотілося спати.
Не never made me laugh. Він ніколи не міг мене

(Maugham) розсмішити/ викликати в мене

посмішку.

The objective with the infinitive construction in the last sen­tence may also be understood and translated with the help of a phrasal verb: Він ніколи не міг викликати в мене навіть кривої посмішки.

In some sentences introduced by the anticipatory /f the objec­tive with the infinitive construction may perform a quite unusual for it function of the complex subject corresponding to the Ukrainian ex­tended infinitival subject:

«It's heavenly to hear you say«Чути ие од вас, любий -

that, my sweet.» (Maugham) справжнісіньке блаженство.»

Translation of the objective with, the infinitive constructions, there­fore, may be predetermined not only by the nature and meaning of the finite verb/predicate, which may have various implicit dependent gram­matical meanings (those of physical or mental perception, verbs of saying, etc.), but also by its syntactic function, by the translator's choice of the equivalent and by the stylistic aim pursued in the sentence by the author.

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