It is common knowledge that the quantitative representation of the passive voice constructions in English by far exceeds that in
Ukrainian. This is not reflected, naturally, in translation since English passive constructions are far from always transplanted to Ukrainian sentences. The much larger quantity of passive constructions in English is explained 1). by the ability of not only the direct but also of the indirect and prepositional objects to perform the function of the subject to the predicate in the passive voice; 2). by the ability of several intransitive verbs to become transitive and take a direct object, and consequently form the passive voice (cf. Her dog is often walked by her brother. The office is run by Mr.Brown). No transpositions of such type are possible in Ukrainian where only the direct object can be transformed into the subject of the sentence in the passive voice. Nevertheless, the meaning of the passive voice may sometimes be maintained, though expressed then not with the help of the analytical means. This can be seen from the following English sentence:
He was offered a betterjob of
some sort of somebody or other,
(Saroyan) .
Parallel to this Ukrainian version and less common or less faithful is one more version and way via the active form of the verbal predicate: or: . A similar expression is also possible in English: some sort of somebody offered him a better job, which the author (Saroyan) ignored in his sentence above.
Some ways of expressing the passive voice in both languages may coincide in form and structure, as can be seen in the first sentence below; others should be transformed (as in the second sentence), in order to achieve faithfulness in translation:
She was faintly disturbed by
what mother had said. (Maugham) ,
If the U.N. peace plan is. .
implemented, frozen Serb assets
in the USA would be released,
(USA Today) .
ᳳ ... .
The passive constructions in the above sentences, however, may not necessarily be rendered into Ukrainian through passive equivalents only. Other contextual variants may also be suggested by the translator, for example: -
, - / .
Nevertheless, English passive forms referring to present tense have mostly no structural equivalents in Ukrainian where the auxiliary verb to be () is usually omitted and the past participle acquires other morphological (e.g., finite form) and semantic expression. Cf.:
Rescue efforts are being ham-
pered by dozens of aftershocks,
below-freezing temperatures, ,
(Ibid.) .
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One more faithful Ukrainian transformation of this passive sentence construction may be achieved by way of conveying it through the so-called middle voice form or -/- verb: , .
Depending on the form of the passive construction and still more on the lexical verbal meaning, this voice form may have in Ukrainian some still other transformations, which express the same meaning of the passive construction; they may acquire the following outer forms of expression in Ukrainian:
a) that of an indefinite personal sentence/clause:
I am told that pork-packing ,
is the most lucrative profession -
after politics in America.
(O.Wilde) .
b) that of a single predicative word/simple nominal predicate:
They're prepared to sacrifice
everything to satisfy their yearn- , /
ing. (Maugham) .
c) a finite form of the verb/simple verbal predicate:
He has never been answered.
(B.Aidiss) .
d) an indefinite personal past participle ending in -ho/ -to:
It is a sound instinct of the
common people which persuades ,
that this all, that needs to be said, , ,
is said. (Maugham) . - .
The room had certainly been
transformed. (I.Murdoch) .
e) any other contextual and structural substitution of the English passive voice predicate verb:
I must be left to myself for
while. (Hemingway) / -
.
If Isabel had come in then, I
suppose I'd be married to Larry ,
now. (Maugham) .
The passive structure sense units of both the English sentences, as can be seen, are practically translated into Ukrainian in a descriptive way, i.e., avoiding their source language outer structure. Nevertheless grammatically correct, though literal and stylistically not quite appropriate or justified, would also be passive variant constructions in Ukrainian: 1). ; 2). / .
Not infrequently the Ukrainian past participle in its predicative function may be one, if not the only possible passive form equivalent of the English passive construction in Ukrainian, as in the following sentence:
Their children slept, their , ()
gate was shut for the night. .
(Fitzgerald) ( ?)
The common English passive voice constructions with the prepositional object as their subject have generally no equivalent passive constructions in Ukrainian. These are rendered then with the help of the indefinite personal forms of the verb (sometimes through reflexive verbs):
Why do you not answer when ,
you are spoken to? (Galsworthy) ?
may say that he is rightly ,
looked upon by all the publishing business as one of the mainstays of literature in America. (Leacock)
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Consequently, some English passive voice constructions often change their outer and inner form and become active voice forms in
Ukrainian. The main concern of the translator, in this case then, must be not so much the structural form of a source language sense unit, than its contextual meaning and, respectively, its form of realization/ presentation in the target language.
