Translating from head-initial to head-final languages

[The Peloric Orchid]

Hello, I'm trying to figure out how to translate texts from English, which is (mostly?) head initial into my conlang, which is head-final. This is a problem because I don't speak a head-final language, nor do I have a strong enough linguistics background to figure out how all the details work. I tried drawing sentence trees in English, changing the tree to left branching, and then plugging in my words, but the problem is that a lot of sample texts I want to translate have sentences which are too hard for me to diagram with my limited background in syntax. I was wondering if anybody else had any experience trying to do this and could offer me tips, link me to resources, or describe strategies which work for them.

[Yng]

I think you're going about this the wrong way. You seem to have decided 'my conlang is head-final' without really knowing what that means, which is a very strange thing to do. There probably are languages which are exclusively head-initial or head-final, but I think most languages show mixed behaviours. What you really need to do is work out exactly what kind of head-initial/head final behaviours your language has and work from there. Wikipedia will help with explaining what is usually considered a head in theory.

[zompist]

the problem is that a lot of sample texts I want to translate have sentences which are too hard for me to diagram with my limited background in syntax.

Focusing on this, because I suspect I know what's happening... you're running into sentence types that don't neatly fit into a Verb Plus Arguments scheme.

The solution is to go step by step. How does a relative clause work? how about conjunctions? If statements? Auxiliary verbs? Complex sentences are made of simpler parts, and once you've run through all the constructions you need, you should be able to translate anything.

You can always compare to a natural language... Japanese is head-final and information is readily accessible.

(I'm assuming you can figure out what a head-final noun phrase looks like. Or what happens to adpositions. If not, well, work that out first.)

[clawgrip]

I find Japanese very often ends up almost entirely backwards to English. I've had students who couldn't wrap their head around an English sentence until I translated it by starting with the subject, then going to the very end of the sentence and translating backwards until I reach the subject. It's amazing how consistently this works.

As an example, here is a sentence taken from a randomly chosen Wikipedia page and then translated to Japanese (basically word for word, which produces an intelligible though somewhat unnatural result):

Code: Select all

"Like raccoons, opossums can be found in urban environments, where they eat pet food, rotten fruit, and human garbage."

アライグマ  と同じように、 オポッサムは  人間のゴミ     や   腐ってる果物  　や 　  ペットフードを  食べる         市街                に  見   られる
raccoons like     , oppossums  human-garbage and rotten-fruit and  pet-food     eat  (where) urban-environment  in  see  can-be

(there is no relative pronoun in Japanese since any verb before a noun automatically becomes a relative clause)

[hwhatting]

Do I understand correctly that you reversed the order of the enumerated objects "pet food, rotten fruit, and human garbage" only to illustrate the method, but that in a "normal" translation their order wouldn't change (at least, that's how head-final languages that I know, e.g. Kazakh, behave?)

[clawgrip]

Do I understand correctly that you reversed the order of the enumerated objects "pet food, rotten fruit, and human garbage" only to illustrate the method, but that in a "normal" translation their order wouldn't change (at least, that's how head-final languages that I know, e.g. Kazakh, behave?)

Yeah, just to illustrate the technique. You can of course put them in any order you like.

Also, I would be remiss not to point out that this technique often works, but definitely not always.

[clawgrip]

It might also help to recognize how exactly English is occasionally head final.

Take this noun phrase "this big car." The noun ("car") is modified by two words ahead of it and comes at the end of the phrase, meaning it is a head-final noun phrase. I can rephrase it to "this car that is big," effectively placing the noun in the middle of the phrase, with modifiers both before and after it. This is impossible in extremely head-final Japanese, where "car" always comes last: kono ōkii kuruma ("this be.big car"). There is absolutely no way to move "big" after "car" while keeping it a noun phrase. Khmer, on the other hand, is even more head-initial than English, and necessarily places "car" first and the modifiers after: lān thom nih ("car be.big this").

You could say, roughly, in simple terms, that in a head-final language, any time you are giving details about something, those details come before the thing they describe. By extension, when you are explaining how something relates to the bigger picture, those words of relation come after.

ōkii kōen
be.big park
the big park

ōkii kōen de
be.big park at
at the big park

You can reverse it for head-initial languages:

utyien thom
park be.big

nɯw utyien thom
be.at park be.big

[Ser]

Another example of English being head-final:

• [[United] Nations] Organization (English, head-final)

"United" modifies the head "Nations", and conversely, the noun phrase "United Nations" modifies the head "Organization". The order of the adjective and both nouns is reversed in Spanish/French/Arabic.

• Organisation des Nations unies / Organización de las Naciones Unidas
  Organization [of the Nations [United]] (literal translation from French/Spanish, head-initial)
  
  /munaðˤːamat al-ʔumam al-mutːaħida/
  Organization [the Nations [the United]] (literal translation from Arabic, head-initial)

[clawgrip]

This is of course head-final in Japanese

kokusai-rengō
international-union

It is a mix in Khmer:

ɔngkā sa'ha'-prɔcieciet
organization united-nation

the mix is I imagine due to the sa'ha'- prefix being Indic in origin.

[Yng]

/munaðˤːamat al-ʔumam al-mutːaħid/
Organization [the Nations [the United]] (literal translation from Arabic, head-initial)[/list]

it's actually /munaðˠːamat al-ʔumam al-mutːaħida/ but the point still stands

[Sevly]

This reminds me of something that I've been wondering about. Here in Canada, thanks to official bilingualism, politicians usually like feel forced to switch between English and French when they're giving their speeches, so the news networks need to have translators on hand to perform simultaneous translation for their target audience (i.e. French > English for me, vice versa for Quebec). Thing is, the translators are pretty eager: if the speaker says "J'ai vu", the translator will immediately start with "I saw". It occurred to me when I was working on Deevie, which is as thoroughly head final as Japanese, that simultaneous translators can't render translation as eagerly when translating between head-final and head-initial languages, at least not with a result that is equally idiomatic, since to translate "I saw people who are struggling to get by in a world with falling employment and rising costs," you have to start with the costs rather than with the seeing. I wonder how much more difficult this makes it for English > Japanese simultaneous interpreters.

[Drydic]

A quick googling reveals nothing about it, but there's an anecdote floating around about a German politico giving a speech, and a guy is watching with the translator. The politico is jabbering away, but the translator is just sitting there. The guy eventually asks what's up, and the translator growls 'Quiet I'm waiting for the verb!'

[Yiuel Raumbesrairc]

I never did simultaneous translation between English and Japanese yet, but I don't find the translation between both to be that difficult.

To the OP :

It would seem you haven't worked enough on your language. Is the verb going at the end of the sentence? Is the noun going after all adjectives? Are adpositions all after the noun? Do all adverbs go before their head adjectives or verbs? That's pretty much what a head-final language is. Take it step by step by creating small sentences and making them progressively larger and larger.

[Ars Lande]

Are you familiar with reverse Polish notation? You may be if you're familiar with Hewlett-Packard calculators or certain programming languages.
The comparison is a little silly, but I actually read it in a Japanse textbook, and for some reason, it helped me immensely with understanding head-initial and head-final languages.

[Pole, the]

A quick googling reveals nothing about it, but there's an anecdote floating around about a German politico giving a speech, and a guy is watching with the translator. The politico is jabbering away, but the translator is just sitting there. The guy eventually asks what's up, and the translator growls 'Quiet I'm waiting for the verb!'

<3

[clawgrip]

Simultaneous translation from Japanese to English can be difficult, like Drydic Guy said, but I think a good interpreter will usually find some way to turn what they've heard into something intelligible even when the verb hasn't yet been stated.