An English-Slovene Contrastive Analysis of the Infinitive in the Function of Subject Complement

Abstract

An English-Slovene contrastive analysis of the infinitve in the function of subject complement has attempted to determine the most frequently chosen equivalents in Slovene literary translations corresponding to the English subject complement realized by the infinitive or the infinitival clause. As the material for analysis five English literary texts and their translations into Slovene were used. The analysis demanded some terminological innovation: the term osebkovo določilo for 'subject complement' was introduced since the terminology and classification of the English grammatical system do not correspond completely to those of the 1984 Slovene grammar.

The basic hypotheses of the English-Slovene contrastive analysis of the subject complement realized by the infinitive were the following: in some cases the Slovene use of the infinitive in this function fully corresponds to that of English, in some cases the use of the infinitive is not possible in Slovene and the finite verb form is used instead, and finally, in most cases the finite verb form is used in Slovene even when the infinitive is also possible.

The results of the analysis have shown that the infinitive in the function of subject complement is rare in English literary texts and even more so in Slovene translations. The analysis has confirmed the assumptions that in some cases the use of the infinitive in Slovene translations fully corresponds to that of English, and that in the majority of cases the Slovene translators used finite verb forms for English infinitives. The analysis has also confirmed the assumption that Slovene translators prefer finite verb forms even when the translation with the infinitive is possible and thus established that the English infinitive as subject complement is usually rendered by the finite verb form in Slovene translations.