Translation of English verbals and verbal constructions/complexes

Common English and Ukrainian non-finite forms of the verb, i.e., the infinitive and both participles, are characterized by identical functions in the sentence. Some of their lexico-grammatical mean­ings, however, are considerably broader in English than in Ukrainian and include the combined tense and aspect, or tense, aspect and voice forms of the infinitive as well as of the present participle derived respectively from the intransitive and from transitive verbs (cf. to live -to be living, to have lived; but: to do - to be done, to be doing; doing -being done, having been done, etc.)

To render faithfully some of these lexico-grammatical mean­ings (semes) of English verbal paradigms into Ukrainian is, naturally, not always possible. An exception make, however, the simple para­digms, which usually have semantic and structural equivalents in both languages. For example:

English Ukrainian

to ask - to be asked запитувати - бути запитаним,

working (Participle I) - працюючий, працюючи;

having worked (Perfect Participle) - попрацювавши, пропрацювавши.

Translation of English verbals depends not only on their struc­tural, i.e., paradigmatic forms but also on their nature. Thus, a special approach is needed to render into Ukrainian the complexity of mean­ings contained by some paradigms of the English gerund (or to render the meanings of the Ukrainian diyepryslivnyk into English).

Consequently, the ways of rendering the meanings of verbals are predetermined by some factors which include a) the structural form of the verbal and b) the function of the verbal in the sentence, where it may be either a single part of the sentence or a component of an extended complex part of the sentence.

And yet, despite the existing differences in their morphological

nature and lexical meaning, some verbals may perform the same func­tions in English sentences and in their corresponding Ukrainian syntaxemes. Hence, in order to translate them correctly, it is expedi­ent to contrast the functions and meanings of English and Ukrainian verbals in the corresponding sentences of these two languages.