General Rule for Translation of German Participle Constructions

Question

A book (Fotos & Shreve, 1940) on translating scientific German suggests that in order to translate a participle construction, the translation should proceed as follows. Translate (1) the definite article (2) preposition (3) the noun (4) the present or past participle, which may have a relative clause and lastly (5) intervening words such as adverbs or other modifiers.

One the sentences which I was trying to apply this rule was "Die Änderung der Dichte des O2 bei hohen Temperaturen wurde besonders von V. Meyer untersucht, ohne dass sich die aus den erhaltenen Resultaten gezogenen weitgehenden Schlussfolgerunen über die elementare Nature des O2 in der Folge aufrechterhalten liessen."

Using following the rule above for the text in italics:

(1) die (2) aus (6) den erhaltenen Resultaten (4) gezogenen (5) weitgehenden (3) Schlussfolgerunen is a participle construction. From the "rule" above, the full sentence could mean

"The change in the density of O2 at high temperatures was especially studied by V. Meyer, out of conclusions drawn extensively from the obtained results without being able to maintain the elemental nature of O2 in the sequence."

Is this correct?

Is there an easy way to parse this sentence or a general rule to translate such complex sentences and how close is Google Translate to the actual meaning?

"The change in the density of O2 at high temperatures was particularly studied by Meyer, without the extensive conclusions drawn from the results obtained regarding the elemental nature of O2 being subsequently maintained."

I am self-teaching.

Answer 1

Your translation of the past participle construction

die aus den erhaltenen Resultaten gezogenen weitgehenden Schlussfolgerungen

conclusions drawn extensively from the obtained results

does not 100% match the original because "weitgehenden" is an adjective, not an adverb.

So a more literal translation would be:

extensive [or maybe better: far-reaching] conclusions drawn from the obtained results

But your translation may still be OK. Maybe it is stylistically better than the more literal one, but that's more a topic for an English forum.

The main challenge when translating the sentence is how to translate the ", ohne dass ..." clause. Here I have two remarks: I am not sure of "out of" works well here, and "without being able" seems to say that V. Meyer was unable to maintain the conclusions, whereas the original sentence seems to say that it is generally impossible to maintain the conclusions.

The Google Translate translation is not that far away, but it doesn't convey the somewhat veiled criticism of V. Meyer's conclusions.

My suggestion would be to use a second clause with "but":

The change in the density of O2 at high temperatures was particularily studied by V. Meyer, but his broad claims about the elementary nature of O2 could not be upheld later on the basis of his own results.

But I think again it is more a question for an English forum which wording works best here. Maybe you could also use "his broad claims ... are not supported by his own results".

Answer 2

That sentence is hedged by purpose because the writer is bitching about V. Meyer making broad claims not sustainable by Meyer's own results.

It's not a good example to practice translation tips on, I think, because of the enormous effort the writer had put into encrypting what he meant.

White lie German:

Die Änderung der Dichte des O₂ bei hohen Temperaturen wurde besonders von V. Meyer untersucht, ohne dass sich die aus den erhaltenen Resultaten gezogenen weitgehenden Schlussfolgerungen über die elementare Natur des O₂ in der Folge aufrechterhalten ließen.

Plain German:

Die Änderung der Dichte des O₂ bei hohen Temperaturen wurde besonders von V. Meyer untersucht, dessen weitgehende Schlussfolgerungen über die elementare Natur des O₂ sich später aus seinen eigenen Messergebnissen nicht aufrechterhalten ließen.

The change in the density of O₂ at high temperatures was particularily studied by V. Meyer, whose broad claims about the elementary nature of O₂ couldn't be sustained by his own results later on.