32 Åke Viberg
The MPC is primarily unidirectional, based on Swedish originals, and allows
bi-directional comparison only to a limited extent. This is a limitation that must
be taken into consideration when interpreting the results, since translated texts
are known to differ from original texts in several respects, even if there is no
agreement regarding exactly how (Malmkjær 2011). This can be compensated for
by comparing with data from other corpora such as the English-Swedish Parallel
Corpus (Altenberg & Aijmer 2000) as has been done in several earlier studies. For
the specific purpose of studying the profile of Swedish, it is extremely valuable to
have access to the closest correspondents of Swedish words and other elements in
other languages, in particular when they are highly language-specific and it may
be hard to know the range of corresponding elements in other languages.- Profiled and un-profiled movement on foot
The fact that the Swedish verb gå more or less obligatorily indicates motion on
foot when the subject is human is reflected by the fact that gå corresponds to two
different verbs in English (walk and go) and the situation is similar in several other
languages. An event (or situation in general) can be described in different ways
depending on the focus of attention. This shift of attention and the selection of
elements in the situation that are coded linguistically will be referred to as profiling
(a cognitive linguistic term, see Croft & Cruse 2004: 47). Example (3) shows gå in
a context where the manner of motion is profiled. (The English translation is given
at the top to provide a clear context.) This example like the following ones is taken
from the MPC corpus (unless some other corpus is explicitly referred to). (KE)
after the Swedish example refers to the text code that always follows the source text
as explained above and in Appendix 1.
(3) English [Annie felt great relief as they left the village. They walked
uphill almost immediately, but they didn’t have to go far. Ola
came in the car when they were just beyond the last houses.]
‘Why did we have to walk the first bit?’ she asked him.
Swedish – Varför skulle vi gå första biten? frågade hon. (KE)
Norwegian – Hvorfor skulle vi gå det første stykket? spurte hun.
Danish – Hvorfor skulle vi gå det første stykke? spurgte hun.
Icelandic – Af hverju áttum við að ganga fyrsta spölinn? spurði hún.
Dutch ‘Waarom moesten we het eerste stuk lopen?’ vroeg ze.
German “Warum sollten wir das erste Stück zu Fuß gehen?” fragte sie.
French – Pourquoi fallait-il que nous marchions au début?
demanda-t-elle.
Finnish – Miksi meidän piti kävellä alkumatka? Annie kysyi.