Chapter 15
Modal verbs in L’Étranger and its Romance
translations
Old problems and new perspectives
In this paper we compare
L’Étranger to two Spanish translations in order
to shed light on two theoretical issues. Firstly, the
externalization problem (Laca, 2018): where do temporal and
aspectual auxiliaries realize preferably in Sp. vs. Fr.? Are high
perfects related to low perfects? Secondly, perfect tenses raise a
problem when it comes to translate epistemic modal sentences from
Fr. into Sp. In a configuration with a low perfect the modal may
accept both the imparfait and the simple past. Each
of the solutions has a particular contribution on discourse.
Epistemic modals will also prove to serve both as a means to
indirectly order the situations described in the foreground and to
achieve the characteristic impression of vividness of
L’Étranger due to their particular
semantics.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Tenses and epistemic modal verbs
- 2.1The linearization problem
- 2.2The analysis: Predictions
- 3.Tenses and epistemic modals in
L’Étranger
- 3.1Perfect linearizations
- 3.2High and low perfects in context
- 3.2.1French high perfects in context
- 3.2.2Spanish low perfects in context
- 3.3The stylistic import of epistemic tensed modals
- 4.Other issues
- 4.1Weak and strong necessity cross-linguistically
- 4.2Modals added and modals suppressed
- 5.Conclusion
-
Acknowledgements
-
Notes
-
References