translation studies - Facultatea de Litere - Dunarea de Jos

Carmen Ciobanu
The ‘Talk Much’ Paradigms in English and Romanian
As their meanings are drawn not from what is said but from how / the way it is said,
MOSVs are the less “neutral” of LAVs. More often than not, they have a negative or
disphoric connotation 15 and only rarely, a positive or euphoric connotation. 16
Semantically, they pretty much fit in a suggestive and dynamic definition of “descriptive
verbs,” which consist of a stable “core of verbal action,” ANu “(act-nucleus)” and Mod
(+x), a variable, descriptive, modifying element, “expressed in the verb’s basic definition
by one or more adjectives or manner adverbs.” (Snell–Hornby 1983: 43) 17 With their
“hazy borders,” MOSVs “merge into each other ... and spill over into other fields,” varying
“dimensionally according to...style, collocations and other factors.”(Snell–Hornby 1983:
67) Since, in MOSVs, ANu stands for a verbum dicendi VDic (i.e. say, ask, talk, speak
spune, zice, întreba, vorbi), in the present analysis, VDic will replace ANu. The
descriptive element, referred to as Mod(ifier), is viewed not as a bundle of separable or
isolated features but as a complex with blurred edges of “distinguishable,” yet “merging
elements,” and “a weighed focus beside peripheral elements.” (Snell–Hornby 1983: 66)
We suggest, therefore, that MOSV meanings should be plotted as the intersection of some
x value with some (+/-y) value. For example, item V(erb)q could be represented as Vq =
ANu + Mod = VDic + [x; (+/-y)], where x and y represent, by aesthetic and ethical
standards, quantitative and qualitative accumulation, respectively.
Many MOSVs have both transitive and intransitive meanings. We assume that the
feature [+Transitive] belongs to the archlexemes SAY 18 - SPUNE, ASK (in its ‘request’
meaning) - ÎNTREBA, or TALK (in its, less frequent,‘utter’ meaning) - VORBI. The feature
[-Transitive] relates these verbs to TALK - VORBI (in their ‘empty/foolish talk’ meaning).
In the final analysis, MOSVs can be described as complex structures that consist of a main
VDic Nucleus and a Modifying embedded sentence, while + V [x; (+/-y)], 19 which
describes a parallel verbal event, with its distinctive parameters: 20
VDic Modifier
(a) SAY - SPUNE
ASK - ÎNTREBA while + V {[[x; (+/-y)] + α, β, γ]} 21
(b) TALK - VORBI
SPEAK - VORBI
Among MOSVs, the verbs and nouns associated with degree or intensity 22 in
speech make a colourful paradigm both in English and Romanian. Turning the
grammatical feature of extensibility into a lexical feature, they “incorporate” quantity or
iterativeness with ‘talk’, inherently involving excessiveness or “an overplus of talking”
(e.g. chatter - , yak - , etc.). Extensible with the intensifier much, talk – vorbi and their
verbal nouns may extensively mean the same, e.g. talk much – vorbi mult; He talks too
much – (El/Ea) vorbeşte prea mult; There’s too much talking. – Se vorbeşte prea mult;
Prea multă vorbărie.
Grammatical intensification by such, so 23 and how may reveal semantic
similarities of nouns, verbs and adjectives. (Cf. Bolinger 1972: 17ff) Compare: Such
talking all the time! - Atâta vorbărie (*tot timpul)!; Nu mai termină (o dată) de vorbit! He
talks so all the time! – Vorbeşte (atâta) tot timpul! Vorbeşte atâta! With action nominals,
so is an intensifier of the modifier, not of the noun phrase as a whole. Compare: e.g.
talking so much = so much talking vs *such much talking As a redundant adverb
intensifier, so hardly adds anything. Compare: “I wish you wouldn’t whisper so (softly);
When you talk, why do you whisper so? = ‘When you talk, why do you talk so
whisperingly (so softly)?’ (Bolinger 1972: 249) The inherent intensifiable feature of
whisper is ‘low’. Compare: I wish she wouldn’t talk so; I wish she wouldn’t yak so; I wish
you wouldn’t whisper so. You make it awfully difficult to hear the speaker. (extensible,
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