Recurrent word-combinations in contrast 193
PREP as only six out of the 66 occurrences of all the way in the material were not
followed by a prep. (5/17 in original texts, only one of which had a more opaque
meaning (I’ll be behind you all the way), and 1/49 in translated texts.)
- Case study no. 3 – Time expressions
Among the most frequent 3-grams which differed across translations and origi-
nals, we noticed a number of temporal expressions in the English lists. The four
combinations shown in Table 9 all occurred among the top 25 3-grams in the
English translations, but were far less frequent in the English originals.
Table 9. Recurrent 3-word temporal expressions in English original and translated fiction
Original Translation
N rank N rank
a long time 23 184 103 11
for a moment 37 67 79 18
the same time 18 333 76 21
the first time 44 49 70 24
In contrast to the expressions with all the ... in the previous section, the word
combinations in Table 9 are all generally semantically transparent, but they have
different degrees of autonomy: for a moment is a complete clause element, while a
long time, the same time, and the first time are often part of extended combinations,
as shown in Table 10, which lists the extended word combinations according to
their frequency.
Table 10. Extended patterns of the temporal 3-word combinations
Extended patterns
a long time for a long time, a long time ago, take a long time
the same time at the same time
the first time for the first time, for the first time in [time span]
Some of the extended patterns are exemplified below. For a long time (25) typically
corresponds to Norwegian lenge (‘long’), while a long time ago (26) corresponds
to (for) lenge siden (‘(for) long since’).
(25) Especially if you ‘ve been away for a long time. (ABR1)
Særlig hvis du har vært borte lenge. (ABR1T)