Contrastive Analysis of the English Future Perfect and Its Croatian Equivalents

master's thesis

• Author: Iva Leskovar
• Mentor: Milena Žic Fuchs (mentor)
• Committee member: Marina Grubišić (predsjednik povjerenstva)
• Committee member: Ivana Bašić (član povjerenstva)
• Granter: University of Zagreb; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences; (Department of English language and literature); Zagreb
• Defense date and country: 2020-11-01, Croatia
• Scientific / art field, discipline and subdiscipline: HUMANISTIC SCIENCES; Philology; Anglistics

Abstract

This master’s thesis focuses on the English tense system, specifically, the perfect tenses, and it does so by looking at it from the viewpoint of the future perfect. It starts by providing a theoretical framework that serves to prove how complex the question of the tense in fact is and how difficult can the grounding of a perfect tense be, especially for non-native speakers. From the data from a parallel corpus of English and Croatian, that was built for the purpose of this thesis, it is visible that the future perfect is not only an infrequent tense, but also that there is no single tense in Croatian that would provide a direct equivalent to it. Additionally, it was noted that the linguistic structure ‘will + have + past participle’ in fact has two discrete meanings. The one of the modal auxiliary ‘will’ combined with the perfect infinitive, expressing past supposition, and the other carrying the future perfect meaning. If the meaning of the structure is that of the past modal, it is translated using the Croatian perfektor aorist. If the verb structure expresses the future perfect, it is translated using futur I.This fact might cause confusion in the understanding of this tense, since the futur Iis not only used to translate the future perfect, but also to translate many other future tense relations, as will be proven later, in the main part of this thesis. The main part attempts to explain the meaningof the future perfect by explainingits understanding by the Croatian students of the English language.The understanding was tested by asking the students to translate some sentences containing the ‘will have V’ structure from English into Croatian, and the answers were analyzed according to which Croatian tense was used in the translation. The explanation of the results was attempted from the cognitive grammar and construction grammar perspective.

Abstract (croatian)

Fokus ovoga diplomskog rada stavljen je na engleski sustav glagolskih vremena, preciznije, na engleski budući perfekt (future perfect). Iako je naglasak na future perfectu, on se također razmatra u suodnosu sa apsolutnim budućim glagolskim vremenima, te sa jezičnom strukturom koja dijeli njegov oblik, a nosi modalno značenje kojim izražava pretpostavku o prošlosti. Za potrebe ovog rada, kako bi se vidjela čestotnost, broj potencijalnih značenja, te mogući prijevodi, autorica je izradila paralelni korpus engleskog i hrvatskog jezika. Rezultati dobiveni analizom korpusa iznešeni su u radu. Također, provedeno je ispitivanje na studentima engleskog jezika u kojem se od njih tražilo da prevedu rečenice koje sadrže future perfect s engleskog na hrvatski. Podaci dobiveni tim ispitivanjem pružaju vrlo važan uvid u to kako neizvorni govornici nekog jezika shvaćaju jezične strukture za koje ekvivalenti ne postoje u materinskom jeziku. Složenostima pitanja future perfecta u ovom radu pristupa se iz prespektive kognitive, odnosno konstrukcijske gramatike.

• Keywords: future perfect; tense; meaning; translation; cognitive grammar
• Language: english
• URN:NBN: urn:nbn:hr:131:533767
• Study programme: Title: English Language and Literature (double major); specializations in: Linguistics, Literature and Culture, Translation, TEFL; Course: Linguistics; Study programme type: university; Study level: graduate; Academic / professional title: magistar/magistra engleskog jezika i književnosti (magistar/magistra engleskog jezika i književnosti)
• Type of resource: Text
• File origin: Born digital
• Access conditions: Open access
• Created on: 2020-11-12 17:06:46