Participial and gerundial clauses in sixteenth-century Spanish prose

Abstract

The aim of this article consists in studying participial constructions (PC) and gerundial constructions (GC), especially absolute PCs and GCs, within a corpus of Spanish translated and non-translated texts from the 16th century written by two Castilian writers who were prominent exponents of the Erasmian prose in this era. Close attention is paid to translated texts in order to determine the extent to which different types and subtypes of PCs and GCs match PCs and/or any kind of structures in the source text (ST). This approach allows to discuss whether or not a syntactic equivalence between ST and target text (TT) predominates in the corpus under study and, when it is the case, to determine to what extent and by means of which mechanisms TT diverges from ST. The analysis shows that the influence of the Latin model in the ST on the syntax of the Romance TT becomes stronger when it works ex negativo, i.e. Latin turns out to be more influential in non-translated texts or in indirect – or not literally – translated contexts.