Typicality in the Use of English and Spanish Indefinite Quantifiers: A Functional Approach

Labrador de la Cruz, Belén

Babel 2003 49 (1)41-58
(ReLIS:jul:oibfdn:y:2003:v:49:i:1:p:41-58)

Abstract:

Quantification is a topic that has traditionally and contemporarily drawn the attention of numerous theoretical linguists, whose works are of great interest but slightly less useful when it comes to applying their results to applied multilingual fields, such as FLT and translation. The aim of the present paper is to show the findings of an empirical contrastive analysis that compares the behaviour of a set of English and Spanish quantifiers. On the basis of a first assumption that words are polyfunctional and therefore the mapping in the network of relationships across languages is not established among lexical units but across functions, this study comes out of a large-scale research which identifies a series of functions expressed by the most prototypical quantifiers in the two languages involved.

Keywords: Inglés-Español ; Traducción
Pages: 41-58
Volume: 49
Year: 2003
Issue: 1

 (go top)