UM ESTUDO COMPARATIVO DOS TEMPOS VERBAIS EM INGLÊS E PORTUGUÊS EM UM CORPUS PARALELO

Abstract

This monograph aims to describe the verb tenses used in the Parallel Corpus for Translation Analysis of Portuguese/English Verbal Systems and map translation choices for the different verb tenses. The corpus, in Portuguese > English direction, is a cut-off of that by Aziz & Specia (2011), which was compiled from Revista FAPESP, a science popularization journal in four knowledge areas (Sciences, Humanities, Politics and Technology). For that purpose, a selection of the first five sentences of five texts from each area of knowledge was made. The total number of sentences was one hundred, both in Portuguese and English. Inflected verbs in each sentence were identified, disregarding verbs in the gerund and past participle forms. The total number of verbs analyzed in Portuguese was 185 and, in English, 188. It was possible to notice that the three most used verb tenses in Portuguese were Presente do Indicativo, Pretérito do Indicativo and Pretérito Imperfeito do Indicativo, and, in English, the most used tenses were the Simple Past and the Simple Present. Special attention was given to some points that, according to research sources, present greater difficulties for translators in training, which are the translation of the following tenses: Pretérito Perfeito, PretéritoImperfeito, Futuro do Indicativo and Futuro do Pretérito, as well as the subjunctive mood in Portuguese and the Present Perfect in English. Finally, some suggestions for future research were made based on the conclusions of the results obtained.