Hey guys, I have just written a conclusion of my master theiss. I was told the tense preferred is past ... or present perfect.. Sometimes I use present tense though ... and I am really not sure about when to use the ppresent perfect and when to use past in the text. Although I am generally pretty good at that, I am getting pretty confused here..

Could you please check the text for me? Well, I hope the articles are correct:) I would really really appreciate your help ( as it is due to tommorrow, and I have no one to check the text  for me).
Once again, GREAT THANKS IN ADVANCE ..

Normal 0 21 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

CONCLUSION

 

Syntax is one of the fields where still much work and research is to be done. Therefore we decided to write our thesis in this field of study.

The objective of this thesis was a thorough analysis of relative clauses of chosen EU documents. Corpus of our research contains 662 relative clauses, which appear in the overall number of 136 normalised pages of the text.

            According to the available literature we wrote theoretical part of this thesis dealing with sentences and the definition of the term. A chapter was devoted to clauses and their existence within a multiple sentence. Theoretical information on English relative clauses was provided in the fourth chapter of the thesis.

In the analytical part, we analysed three documents of the most important institutions of the EU, which are available  in their full length on-line and also on the CD attached to the thesis. The examined documents are Directive 2002/96/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 January 2003 on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), Regulation No 851/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 April 2004 establishing a European centre for disease prevention and control and Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 September 2008 on the inland transport of dangerous goods.

Practical study was based on the analysis of the documents chosen, identifying relative clauses and their broader examination. Relative clauses were examined and the statistics and tables were developed. In the processing of data and analyzing clauses we concentrated on the specific types relative clauses according to the principle of finiteness and non-finiteness and according to the principle of modification. Finally we paid our attention to relativizers introducing relative clauses and stating of the frequency of use of specific relativizers. We summarized the basic features of the occurrence of specific relative clauses and provided comments on the results of our analysis.

By identification of relative clauses and their classification, it was not always easy to find out whether it was the case of a relative clause or an adverbial clause. Especially non-restrictive relative present participle –ing clauses can be sometimes interpreted also as adverbial clauses. However identifying the type of a sentence could be done according to the context in which the sentence occurred.

According to the analysis, our hypothesis has been proven right. Relative clauses with a non-finite verb structure are the most common type of relative clauses, according to the principle of finiteness and non-finiteness. This can be the result of the complexity of sentences in documents analyzed and their condensation, which is realized by using non-finite clauses. Out of non-finite relative clauses,  past participle –ed clauses, that are not marked for aspect, are the most frequently used sentences. As non-finite clauses created a great part of the corpus, we would like to mention that the study of non-finite relative clauses should not be underestimated. Students and also translators are often not aware of their existence, which can have an influence on their understanding and translation.

Based on the analysis of relative clauses according to the principle of modification, adjectival relative clauses are to be found most often in the documents. Antecedents were in more cases postmodified by a restrictive adjectival relative clause than by a non-restrictive relative clause. This result is closely linked to the informative and factual character of the analysed documents.

We hope that the results of our work will be applicable for students as well as for translators. As a practical guide to relative clauses in EU documents, the thesis can help students to understand their occurrence and contribute to the preparation of future successful translators.