Partitioning

Partitioning is either replacing in translation of a source sentence by two or more target ones or converting a simple source sentence into a compound or complex target one.

One is to distinguish between inner partitioning (conversion of a simple sentence into a compound or complex one) and outer partitioning (division of a sentence into two or more). For example, inner partition­ing is used when translating English verbal complexes into Ukrainian:

Come along and see me play one evening. — Приходь коли-небудь увечері - побачиш, як я граю.

More often than not inner partitioning is a regular translation trans­formation accounted for by the differences in the Ukrainian and English syntactic structures, although it may be also used on individual occasions as required by the text genre and style and communication variety of the source sentence.

When translating from English into Ukrainian outer partitioning (unlike inner) is more a matter of personal translator's choice based, of course, on the proper account of stylistic and genre peculiarities and communication intent of both the source text and its translation.

Outer partitioning is out of the question in case of translating official legal or diplomatic documents (laws, contracts, memos, etc.) but it be­comes a totally justified translation option, say, in consecutive transla­tion of a long and complex sentence.

The following example from Graham Greene³⁴ is one of the cases where outer partitioning seems a proper translation device (although, of course, not a universal recipe):

There was a real game too, not a party game played in the old school hall and invented by my eldest brother Herbert, who was always of an ad­venturous character until he was changed by the continual and sometimes shameful failures of his adult life.

Була і справжня, а не салонна гра, у яку ми грали в актовому залі старої школи. Цю гру вигадав мій старший брат Герберт - людина винахідлива і схильна до всіляких пригод, доки постійні і часом га­небні негаразди дорослого життя не змінили його вдачу.