(18) It.
All’inizio aveva accumulato idee, poi si era messa a riempire quaderni d’appunti.
→ Na začátku nahromadila nápady a pak začala zaplňovat sešity poznámkami.
Literally: she started to fill the notebooks with notes.
Alessandro Baricco, City (City), transl. Alice Flemrová, Prague: Volvox Globator, 2000.
(19) Fr.
De temps en temps, il s’approchait de notre groupe, nous écoutait et quand je me mettais à raconter mes histoires françaises, il me fixait d’un air méfiant. → Občas se k našemu hloučku přiblížil, chvíli nás poslouchal, a když jsem začal vykládat svoje francouzské historky, upřel na mě podezíravý pohled.
Literally: when I started to narrate my French tales.
Andrei Makine, Francouzský testament (Le Testament français), transl. Vlasta Dufková, Prague – Liberec: Paseka, 2002.
Once again, the type labelled as no translation was the second most frequent. As in the case of the neutral constructions analysed in Section 5.3.2.1, the absence of any explicit expression of ingressivity was often associated with verbs expressing a change of state or a momentary action, i.e. verbs containing inherent ingressivity (20):
(20) Pt.
Ah, porque não me disse? – e pôs-se a limpar as mãos ao avental. → “Proč jste to neřekl hned?” – a otřela si ruce do zástěry.
Literally: she wiped her hands on the apron.
Fernando Namora, Muž s maskou (O Homem Disfarçado), transl. Pavla Lidmilová, Prague: Svoboda, 1979.
Nevertheless, the missing explicit notion of ingressivity in many cases also resulted from the strengthening of the secondary semantic notions of effort expressed by these periphrases. This kind of translation is represented by (21) and (22):
(21) Es.
Después se pusieron a fumar hombro contra hombro, satisfechos. → Pak se opřeli jeden druhému o rameno a spokojeně pokuřovali.
Literally: they were happily puffing away.
Julio Cortázar, Nebe, peklo, ráj (Rayuela), transl. Vladimír Medek, Prague: Mladá fronta, 2001.
(22) It.
Mi sono messa a correre verso la foresta come non avevo mai corso prima d’allora, e ho continuato finché sono crollata perterra; (...). → Hnala jsem se k lesu jako ještě nikdy v životě a pak jsem běžela dál, dokud jsem nepadla; (...).
Literally: I rushed towards the wood.
Sebastiano Vassalli, Nespočet (Un infinito numero), transl. Kateřina Vinšová, Prague –Litomyšl: Paseka, 2003.
The Czech respondent of the neutral Spanish verb fumar (‘to smoke’) in (21) contains a higher level of expressiveness since the verb pokuřovat (in contrast to the neutral kouřit – ‘to smoke’) also implies certain pleasure and involvement in the action of smoking, thus roughly corresponding to the English verb ‘to puff’. In (22), the neutral Italian verb correre (‘to run’) is translated by the Czech verb hnát se (‘to rush’, ‘to dash’), which in its semantics contains the notion of [+effort] [+subject’s interest] [+motivation].
5.3.2.3 ingressive constructions expressing the beginning of a process and the notions of suddenness and unexpectedness
In this section, we analyse the Spanish constructions echarse a + infinitive and echar a + infinitive. While the additional semantic notions expressed by these periphrases are the same (see García Fernández et al. 2006, 121–126), they differ in the combinatorics since echarse a combines mostly with verbs of emotional reaction while echar a combines with verbs of movement (cf. Gómez Torrego 1999, 3374). The infinitive completions with f ≥ 10 that were found in our corpus are resumed in Tables 5.3 and 5.4.
Tab. 5.3. Infinitive completions of echarse a.
The limited combinatorics of these constructions also influenced the Czech translations resumed in Table 5.5.
The dominant type of translation was the prefix roz- followed by the translation type marked as other prefix (generally corresponding to the prefix vy- here). With the construction echarse a + infinitive, the analytic type dát se do + noun was also frequently used (approximately 22.3% of all respondents). The strong dominance of these respondent types is not surprising since they correspond extremely accurately to all notional and combinatory characteristics of the analysed constructions. All three types imply a sudden beginning of a process. Roz- and dát se do prefer the combination with verbs or nouns corresponding to emotional reaction (plakat ‘to cry’, brečet ‘to cry’, smát se ‘to laugh’ / pláč ‘crying’, brek ‘crying’, smích ‘laughter’), in its ingressive interpretation the prefix vy- generally combines with verbs of movement (see Section 5.2.4.2). Therefore, the prototypical respondents found in the analysed concordance can be represented by (23), (24) and (25):
(23) Es.
Se revelaba sólo a medias, fugazmente, en un juego exasperante de sombras chinescas, pero al despedirse, cuando ella estaba a punto de echarse a llorar por hambre de amor, le entregaba una de sus prodigiosas cartas.
Objevoval se jen napůl, prchavě, v nesnesitelné stínohře, která ji přiváděla k zoufalství, ale při loučení, kdy se z hladu po lásce už už chtěla rozplakat, předal jí jeden ze svých úžasných dopisů.
Literally: she was about to start crying (plakat = ‘to cry’, rozplakat se = ‘to start crying’).
Isabel Allende, Dcera štěstěny (Hija de la fortuna), transl. Monika Baďurová, Prague: BB Art, 2004.
(24) Es.
Ruibérriz se echó a reír ahora, el labio vuelto y la dentadura relampagueante como si le estallara.
Ruibérriz se dal do smíchu, horní ret se mu ohrnul a zuby se blýskaly, jako by metaly blesky.