Mirosláv Bázlik – Patrik Ambrus

The Grammatical System
of Legal English

Magyar nyelvű lábjegyzetekkel ellátta
dr. Bajcsi Péter

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Minden jog fenntartva, beleértve a sokszorosítás és a mű bővített, illetve rövidített változatának kiadási jogát is.
A kiadó írásbeli hozzájárulása nélkül sem a teljes mű, sem annak bármely része semmiféle formában (fotokópia, mikrofilm vagy más hordozó) nem sokszorosítható.

A mű Miroslav Bázlik és Patrik Ambrus A Grammar of Legal English (Iura Edition, Bratislava, 2008) első kiadásának alapján készült.

Szerzők:
Miroslav Bázlik
Patrik Ambrus

Magyar nyelvű lábjegyzetekkel ellátta:
dr. Bajcsi Péter

© Miroslav Bázlik, Patrik Ambrus, dr. Bajcsi Péter, Budapest, 2010
© CompLex Kiadó Jogi és Üzleti Tartalomszolgáltató Kft., Budapest, 2010

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to pay respect to all other researchers whose observations of legal English have been found useful and to thank all those who have provided their comments, encouragement, and other stimuli. Our appreciation goes to colleagues and friends who gave us advice during the process of putting our observations into words and whose criticism helped to reduce the number of errors. We are particularly thankful to Stanislav Kavka, Vladimír Kajlik, Heather Trebatická, Martin Votruba, Jan Chovanec, Pavel Hofírek, and Jiří Leksa, and to all those who have had their impact on our working life, in particular the late Professor Josef Vachek, Alžbeta Kubišová, Ada Böhmerová, and Jozef Nagy.

Our special gratitude goes to the Iura Edition and to CompLex Kiadó publishers for their interest in our project and for offering their cooperation.

Preface

Whether we like it or not, our lives are governed by certain legal norms and regulations, which we can, but need not always, be aware of. Once we become involved in legal issues we realize that legal language constitutes a special register with its own principles and properties and characterized not only by distinct terms, many of which are unknown to the general public, as well as by its structure, which, particularly in English, sounds unusual or special. In many respects it is felt obsolescent or obsolete, archaic, complicated, or incomprehensible to a person untrained in law.[1] Some of the linguistic structures are even considered incorrect outside the domains of legal English.[2] Practically everyone is, sooner or later in life, faced with some legal issues and will recognize, even if not necessarily understand, some aspects of legal language (also called legalese, legal parlance, legal jargon).

Legal English is not just one particular variant of the English language. It is rather a set of variants on a scale: we get involved in certain issues of a legal nature while dealing with everyday situations, such as buying and selling, performing bank operations, discussing the rules of the traffic code, or, though not too often, we are affected by events with a significant legal dimension, such as getting married, inheriting property, etc. As the media have a strong influence on our lives we also become acquainted with legal issues that would otherwise pass unnoticed. It is impossible to avoid ever being involved in a situation where the understanding of legal issues is an advantage. Legal language can be very technical in some instances, let alone the complications of the law itself, and so we hire professional lawyers to act on our behalf, to draw or interpret documents, to advise us on legal matters. The language they use is so difficult to understand that efforts have been made to simplify it. As is reported by Vystrčilová (2000: 92–93), “On April 26, 1998 the legal language and traditions that characterized British courts for decades were swept away in a new set of rules published in a 800 page document by the Lord Chancellor’s Department. Old Latin and French law terms such as writ or plaintiff were replaced by ‘plain legal English’ terms.” In spite of such efforts, legal English continues to be a complicated register. Minor changes, if any, which it may undergo as a result of the efforts to simplify it, mostly affect the use of certain terms but not the overall structure.

This volume is a guide to some difficulties encountered in dealing with the structure of legal English, mainly in its written form. It is designed to help linguists involved in translating legal texts and lawyers who want to learn to read and interpret English legal texts. At the same time it will be found useful by anyone interested in the English language. We expect its contents to be useful to anyone interested in the English language.

The theoretical part is followed by a section with exercises providing practice in the use of some specific features of legal English.

We will appreciate any comments or suggestions for revisions. They can be emailed to the following address: legal.english.grammar@gmail.com.

The description of legal English is based on various materials, with a special focus on criminal law. Most of the sources used are available on the Internet. In order to help the reader to find the examples used in their context, we have, wherever possible, used as our first choice the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure[3]), which is also used for occasional statistical calculations. Most of the material comes from American sources. It will be necessary in the future to describe various territorial versions of legal English as we expect variations to be found between British, American and other regional varieties of legal language. Grammar, however, exhibits the fewest variations in different territories and different spheres of the law. This volume, therefore, provides general reference material for those who compose English legal texts as well as for translators from and into English.

Some remarks on legal English are made repeatedly in more than one place. This is because we assume that there will be readers who will only look up selected topics. A particular topic may be linked to several other topics. The reader will find explained most of the problems potentially encountered in English legal texts.

Megjegyzések a magyar lábjegyzetekhez

Magyar kiadótól a jogi angolt bemutató, a gyakorlati problémák megoldásában segítségül vehető kiadványból igen kevés áll a szakfordító rendelkezésére. Sajnos, még igazán alapos angol–magyar jogi szótár sem készült eddig. Ezért is nagy megtiszteltetésnek tartom, hogy a CompLex Kiadó megbízásából ügyvédként, de szinkrontolmácsként és jogi fordítóként is lábjegyzetekkel láthatom el ezt a hiánypótló művet.

Nem törekedtem minden nyelvi jelenséghez megjegyzéseket fűzni. Nem volt feladatom az sem, hogy párhuzamosan értékeljem a magyar jogi szövegek jellegzetességeit, furcsaságait. Feladatomnak azt tekintettem, hogy a magyar jogi gondolkodás és a magyar jogi nyelv tükrében, kifejezetten a fordítási problémákat mutassam be. Ezért megjegyzéseim sporadikusak: nem minden bemutatott nyelvi jelenség fordítása okoz nehézségeket. Így tehát csak ott fűztem a szöveghez megjegyzéseket, ahol tapasztalataim szerint a legjellemzőbbek a nehézségek, félrefordítások.

Az angol–magyar jogi fordítás nem csak a két nyelv eltérő szerkezete, mondattana és gondolkodásmódja miatt nehéz. Az összehasonlító jogelmélet körébe tartozik, de a fordítóknak okoz mindennapi keserűséget, hogy a két jog más-más családfáról ered. A magyar jog római jogi alapokon nyugszik és az ún. „kontinentális” jog körébe tartozik. Ezzel szemben fogalmi szinten máshogy ragadja meg a valóság jogi tényeit a részben más elvi alapon működő és a „precedens” jogot használó angol–amerikai jog. Ezért is nagyon nehéz a jogi szöveget jól fordítani: nem csak a szavak jelentését, de esetenként a mögöttes jogintézmény működését is ismerni kell. Ennek hiányában a fordítás könnyen lesz hibás.

Átfedések természetesen vannak a precedensjog és a kontinentális jog között, hiszen az angol jog egyes területeire is hatással volt a római jog (lásd kánonjog vagy a hajózási jog). Ezek fontos nyelvi hidak. Nyelvi szempontból különösen érdekesek az olyan angolszász földrajzi régiók is, ahol történelmi okok miatt a kontinentális (elsősorban a francia) jog elvei és megközelítései erőteljesen érvényesülnek, és a jogi szövegek valahogy közelebb állnak a magyar jogból ismert fordulatokhoz. Ilyen terület például a kanadai Québec vagy az Egyesült Államokban Louisiana állam. Gyakorlati tapasztalat, hogy ezen területek jogszabályait fordítóként böngészgetve jó eséllyel megtalálhatjuk a keresett terminus technicus megfelelőjét. Furcsa, de az angol jogi nyelv ma is több latin kifejezést használ, mint a magyar. A jogszabályok mellett a magyar jogban is egyre nagyobb szerepet játszanak az egyes eseti döntések, bírói határozatok, a precedensek. Jellegzetes hibrid nyelvvé kezd válni az EU jogszabályaiban megjelenő jogi angol, amely szintén könnyebben értelmezhető a magyar jogi fordítóknak, mint egy „eredeti angol” szöveg.

Az eltérő jogi hagyományok és jogi iskolák miatt mindig óvatosan kell kezelnünk egy azonosnak tűnő megfelelőt. A jogi kifejezések jelentési spektruma jelentősen eltérhet, így a felszíni azonosság mögött veszedelmes eltérések, és így eltérő bújtatott üzenetek jelenhetnek meg.

Kifejezetten hasznosnak tartom a kiadvány végén található gyakorlatokat. Javaslom, hogy nyelvi önismereti tesztként a Kedves Olvasó is próbálkozzon meg a feladatok megoldásával, hogy a passzív ismeretek a tudatos szakmai nyelvhasználat szintjére emelkedjenek.

A könyvhöz egy csésze jó angol tea mellett kellemes böngészést kívánok!

dr. Bajcsi Péter

Introduction

Legal English differs from ordinary uses of the English language by the presence of certain markers specific for this register. These markers are not limited, as many people believe, to just the terminology, but involve a wide scale of linguistic phenomena including the choice and frequency of certain forms, complexity of statements, the use of terms which in ordinary non-legal usage have a different meaning, employment of some special constructions, and even ‘breaking’ certain rules of grammar, which might be qualified as mistakes in ordinary English, such as the omission of the determiner, the use of future auxiliaries in conditional and temporal clauses, plural forms of nouns known as non-count in ordinary language, and so on. Legal English is also characterized by special connecting elements and discourse markers, such as notwithstanding, provided, subsequent, forthwith, said, afore-mentioned, referred to above, pursuant to, pro-forms such as herein, thereby, coordinated structures consisting of pairs of synonyms, etc.

According to Bęcławski (2010: 46), the name legal English is synonymous with legalese or courtroom vernacular, and it may well be treated as a sub-language or ‘domain’ of the English language due to its significant diversity in syntax, lexicon and discourse.

One typical aspect of legal English is the use of certain collocations and phrases, for example as the case may be, to seek satisfaction, signed, sealed and delivered, as amended, pursuant to, except as provided in, substantially similar, etc.[4] The parties (natural persons as well as legal entities) referred to according to the role in which they are involved, are named by special terms, often distinguished by the -er/-or and the -ee suffixes respectively. Capital letters are used where we would not use them in ordinary English, sometimes whole words or expressions are capitalized (e.g. WHEREAS). Some collocations often used in legal English develop into schemata (also referred to as clichés, e.g. the marriage of the parties being irretrievably broken…), cf. Tomášek (1998: 47–49) or Man (1969).

The reasons for this special character of legal English are manifold. One of them is the history of law in the British Isles, where Roman law has not been adopted in contrast to many countries in continental Europe, where it still forms one of the sources of the law. Even British law itself is not based on a uniform system and Scottish law in particular exhibits marked differences in comparison with the law of England and Wales. Apart from that, British legal practice still follows not only ‘statute law’, i.e. the law as it is enacted by the Parliament and published as various Acts, but especially ‘common law’ as well, which is the law based on earlier decisions of British law-courts, which were adopted by judges when no written laws governing the particular case existed and the decision-making of the judges takes into consideration the decisions adopted in previous cases, sometimes centuries old. Obviously, such ancient decisions were not written in Modern English, which was yet to come. While the process of quoting earlier decisions brought back certain linguistic features which were otherwise extinct, many features absent in contemporary English were not necessarily understood as antiquated ones but were associated with the specificity of the language of the law and thus were imitated even in new documents and laws. This explains why the legal language is so conservative. Even in this millennium it is not uncommon in a trial for the judge or other participants to quote old records of legal proceedings written at a time when English followed rules of grammar different from those governing Modern English.[5] Such forms have become regarded not just as forms now otherwise obsolescent or dead but instead they have been reevaluated as special forms characteristic of legal style and as such they are used or imitated by present-day lawyers. Not of minor importance is the fact that those involved in the legal profession are interested in preserving the present situation. It makes their services indispensable when a person not trained in law becomes involved in legal matters and needs assistance.

The complexity of legal texts, as Vallová (1999: 189) puts it, is based on the fact that “the language of the law uses a combination of complex phrases and the syntax of the complex sentence”. Some legal statutes go as far as to provide for a special interpretation of certain linguistic forms. The following is an extract from the Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure:[6]

Art. 5055. Number; gender

Unless the context clearly indicates otherwise:

(1) Words used in the singular number apply also to the plural; words used in the plural number include the singular; and

(2) Words used in one gender apply also to the others.

Such linguistic comments are not exceptional; they are sometimes used to avoid the possibility of an interpretation different from the one intended.

Lawyers, of course, deal with practically all aspects of our lives and have to discuss things which are not only questions of law but which involve any field of human activity.

For example, a person going to law to deal with bodily harm needs to specify the parts of the body including the internal organs, names of the bones, various medical symptoms, etc. A legal translator or interpreter, too, needs to deal not only with the legal language but also with the terminology and structure of the language involving any field of human activity which can be regulated by law or discussed in court. Thus anyone who wants to translate or interpret legal texts must also be familiar with a wide spectrum of non-legal uses of English. Moreover, the persons coming into conflict with the law, or otherwise involved in legal cases (as, for example, witnesses, victims of crimes, contracting parties, etc.) do not always express themselves in standard English but nevertheless appear in court and give evidence using the language as they know it.

There are differences within legal English as it is used in different domains of the law, such as criminal law, civil law, business law, family law, military law, maritime law, to name just a few of the specialized areas, and new branches have come into being even within our lifetime, such as the law of the European Union, environmental law, or space law reflecting the process of our penetration into the universe, which requires regulation like any other area of human activity. These differences make law even more complex. We cannot ignore the presence of law in all aspects of our lives. We will nevertheless see features which are typical of not just one domain of the law but are spread throughout the language used in dealing with everyday issues such as taxation, various financial matters or insurance, in documents issued by government agencies. Of course, some of these areas bear marks which are not present in others. For example a judgment in a criminal case will be different from the wording of a business contract.

Anyone involved in translating legal texts needs not only to deal with their contents but also to adjust the product so as to give it the appearance of a legal text. In some languages, the legal language is mainly a matter of terminology and collocations which mark the style of legal documents, formulations of legal provisions, etc. Apart from having to know what a particular term or expression means, a translator ought to be able to decide which of the synonyms available should be used in the particular context. The English term defendant is used both in civil and criminal proceedings but when used in civil proceedings it is the counterpart of plaintiff or claimant. In divorce cases, however, the term defendant is mostly replaced by respondent, which is the counterpart of petitioner. In criminal cases defendant is used in the sense of the indicted person and its opposite is none of the terms mentioned above. The usual replacement in BrE is The Crown and in the USA it is either The State or The Unites States of America in criminal cases tried by the Federal Court and the state courts respectively.[7] A legal translator must be aware of such differences and accordingly use the terms in the language of translation.

Some words frequent in common English, such as phrasal verbs, are relatively uncommon in legal texts and are replaced by “long verbs”, often derivatives or compounds of mostly Latin or French origin. Pronouns are used less frequently in legal English than in non-legal texts. Words known in one meaning in ordinary English may have a different meaning in legal English. Many expressions or constructions which survive in legal English are otherwise felt archaic.

Vystrčilová, (2000: 94) speaks about four basic needs which must be satisfied in legal translation: “The law is always subject to interpretation. The translation of legal texts of any sort stands at the crossroads of (at least) four areas of theoretical inquiry:

– legal theory

– comparative legal theory

– language theory

– translation theory”.[8]

It is our aim to concentrate on what we consider the most neglected of the above-quoted area – the language theory, especially at the grammatical level. The following text illustrates some frequent phenomena typical for the grammatical and other levels of legal English.

The mortgage herein constituted is intended by the parties hereto to be security for the payment of all amounts (whether principal, interest, fees, indemnities or other amounts) that are now or hereafter outstanding or payable to the Bank under the Tranches B and C Loan Agreement. It shall not be construed as limiting or in any way precluding the exercise by the Bank of any or all of its rights for the full payment of such amounts under the Tranches B and C Loan Agreement.

The text, a paragraph from a contract, can immediately be recognized as a piece of legal English, which is manifest not only in the terms used (they might on their own be sufficient to reveal the legal nature of the text) but also in the grammatical constructions and stylistic features. It exemplifies such phenomena as the use of capital letters (as in Bank), the use of pro-forms herein, hereafter, coordinated structures now or hereafter, or any and all, full and due, the modal verb shall in the third person, the determiner such, the passive voice used repeatedly within a few lines, the agent expressed by means of the preposition by, the use of the preposition under in the meaning of ‘according to’, etc. Even fewer features would be sufficient to identify the type of the source (pro-forms, shall). Some forms, though not specific for legal English only, contribute to marking the text as legal by their high frequency (e.g. the passive). The above text also bears lexical marks of legal English such as the use of long or uncommon words (precluding), special terms (Tranches B and C Loan Agreement, mortgage, security, construe), unusual meanings of words (outstanding meaning ‘unpaid’, principal signifying ‘basic finances apart from interest and other proceeds’ in contexts dealing with financial matters although in other contexts, e.g. in business contracts, principal indicates the party which engages another party to carry out some services). [9]

As has been mentioned, legal language is not isolated from ordinary language. The law forms part of our daily life. It deals with issues discussed not only by lawyers but also by anybody voluntarily or involuntarily involved or informed and is increasingly present in the media. The specialty of the legal language is that it is used in formal communication, i.e. in court sessions, in formal negotiations, in police investigations, as well as in statutory provisions and official documents issued by government agencies and other authorities, but also composed on behalf of ordinary individuals by their attorneys.

Lawyers sometimes bear “symptoms” of their profession in that even their ordinary communication occasionally features expressions used in the legal profession. A nice example is provided by the famous play Witness for the Prosecution by Agatha Christie (of which two successful film versions have been made), where the main character – a barrister – uses many legal terms in his everyday conversation (as a kind of a “professional deformation”).

In the following sections we intend to present our observations on certain special features characteristic of legal language. They will be found almost at all levels, though we may not always realize that a particular feature deserves to be described from the viewpoint of its properties in legal language as its deviation from ordinary language is not a complete about-turn but represents a continuum of sub-registers including some border cases. A legal issue may be discussed, e.g., in a newspaper: reports about crime can be encountered every day. In their articles journalists may adopt some features of legal English but not all. Similarly, a person who has been remanded in custody and awaits trial may not be a lawyer but within the course of the pre-trial proceedings will have learned from his lawyer at least a few terms or even stylistic devices and may use them in his language whether in court or otherwise.

We believe that apart from other language levels it is worth noting that the grammar of legal English constitutes a more-or-less autonomous system within the grammatical system of the English language but simultaneously it is not isolated from the grammar of ordinary English as in most cases any particular grammatical structure typical of legal English is potentially replaceable with a structure that belongs to the domain of general grammar. This symbiosis seems to be unique for the domain of legal English, or at least, more strikingly marked than is the case with other registers. It is hardly possible to notice all the minute details which contribute to making the register of legal English so special and our present description is just an attempt at, or a starting point towards, painting a more complex picture of all (or rather most of) the phenomena contributing to its characteristics.

Owing to the above-mentioned fact that the majority of the publications dealing with legal English that are generally available (e.g. Melinkoff 1963) are based on the terminological features and pay relatively little attention to the grammatical aspects, which, in our opinion, constitute an important feature of legal texts, we will devote most of our attention to this particular aspect of legal English. Grammar, of course, is only one part of the linguistic structure of any text, therefore some attention will be paid to lexical, semantic, and other aspects of legal English as well.

[1] A magyar jogi nyelv szintén idegenül hangzik a nem jogászok számára. A kifejezések sokszor érthetetlenek, a mondatok hosszúak és nyakatekertek, az egész csak szőrszálhasogatás. A „jogászkodik”, mint pejoratív kifejezés ezt a hangulatot örökíti meg.

[2] Ez a magyar jogi nyelvben sincs máshogy, lásd például az eltérő névelőhasználat kérdéseit.

[3] Texas Business Corporation Act and Code of Criminal Procedure,
http://tlo2.tlc.state.tx.us/statutes/cr.toc.htm

[4] Ezek a magyar jogi nyelvben is számosak: „a szerződés teljesedésbe megy”, „a hagyaték megnyílása”, „uralkodó telek”, „együvétartozásuk felszámolása érdekében” stb. Ezek sokszor tűnhetnek nehézkesnek, archaikusnak.

[5] Ezzel a jelenséggel a magyar jogász vagy fordító ritkán szembesül. A régi magyar jogszabályok gyűjteménye, a Corpus Iuris Hungarici, a Tripartitum vagy az Optk. lapozgatásakor ugyan bőven lehet jogi és nyelvi csemegékkel találkozni, de ezek a fordulatok a mai magyar jogi szövegekből már kihaltak és legfeljebb jogtörténeti munkák fordításakor okozhatják a legnehezebb problémákat. Példa az Optk.-ból: „Miképpen kellessék a hagyományt dologbani jog alapítása végett bekebeleztetni, fennebb a 437.§-ban határoztatott meg.” Vagy: „A szülék általában kötelesek törvényes gyermekeiket nevelni, azaz életökről és egészségökről gondoskodni, azoknak illő tartást szerezni, …, s a vallás- és hasznos ismeretekre okitatás által a jövendő jóllétöket megalapitatni.”

[6]Lousiana Code of Civil Procedure, Book IX, Miscellaneous Provisions and Definitions, Title I,

Miscellaneous Provisions, Chapter 1, Rules of Construction.

http://www.legis.state.la.us/lss/lss.asp?doc=112143

[7] Büntetőeljárásban a Magyar Állam képviseletét a vádhatóság, az ügyészség látja el. Az „Állam” nevesítetten természetesen minden bírói eljárásban megjelenik, mert az ítéleteket a bíróság mindig a Magyar Köztársaság nevében hozza meg. Egyébként polgári eljárásokban főszabályként a Pénzügyminiszter képviseli a Magyar Államot.

[8] A fordítón jogi szövegekben is nagyon sok múlik. A fordító választása a szöveg egyik lehetséges értelmezését az egyetlen és végleges értelmezéssé szilárdíthatja, így a fordító egyben a szöveg és vele együtt a jogi kérdés, vagy akár a jogvita értelmezőjévé és eldöntőjévé is válhat. Ezért a többnyelvű szövegek esetében szerepelni szokott az irányadó nyelv – governing language – klauzula, amely meghatározza, hogy jogvita esetén a szöveg értelmezéséhez melyik nyelvet kell figyelembe venni. A szerződéses vagy jogszabályi rendelkezés értelmezéséhez a nyelvi értelmezés mellett a jogalkalmazók természetesen figyelembe veszik a rendszertani, logikai, történeti stb. értelmezés eszközeit is.

[9] A principal jelentése a szerződési jogban megbízó vagy megrendelő, a szerződés tartalmának megfelelően.

Word formation

Word formation is mostly dealt with in lexicology rather than grammar; therefore we will only pay minimum attention to it (referring mainly to some processes involved in the formation of nouns) as our primary aim is to describe grammatical peculiarities.

Legal language contains a number of borrowings and internationalisms. A large number of legal terms are loan words taken over from Latin and French, e.g. bona fide, commence, et seq., ex parte, force majeure, jurisprudential, including collocations of nouns followed by adjectives, such as decree nisi, decree absolute, attorney general, notary public. (cf. Appendix)

Derivation (by prefixes and suffixes) and to a lesser degree compounding are common ways of word formation in legal English. Examples of the former include heritable, quasi-offense, filliation, obligor, obligee, reproduce, disprove, reexamine, predecease, predetermine, accountable, credibility, survivorship, enfranchisement, and of the latter in courtroom, housebreaking, attorney-at-law, witness-box, eye-witness, etc. As far as affixation is concerned, foreign (esp. Latin) affixes are more frequent than in ordinary English.[1]

It is highly unusual to find clippings such as lab, fridge, pram, etc. in legal English as such words mostly belong to informal English.

Contracted verb forms (e.g. hasn’t, shan’t) are typical of informal varieties of English, and are logically absent in the examined legal texts.

Another class of words not usual in legal English is portmanteau words (blendings).

Words formed by conversion occur in legal English, too, for example

items deleted and initialed by a person

The court may cause the witnesses to be subpoenaed…

the calling of meetings

investment plans

dividend investment plans

Although instances of words converted from other word classes occur in legal English, we cannot decide without undertaking a wider research on how productive conversion is within legal English. Some words obviously underwent this process before they were used in legal English texts.

Collocations of words forming special naming units are also relatively common in legal English, e.g. days of grace, legal entity, natural person, preliminary injunction, tax return, juvenile delinquency, plead guilty, be remanded in custody, return on investment, sole judge, interest accrued, service of process, be under oath, writ of summons, warrant of arrest, etc. Some of them have acquired a terminological status, e.g. grievous bodily harm.[2]

Collocations consisting of coordinated pairs of items (e.g. breaking and entering, care and control) are very typical. They constitute a special class which will be discussed separately (as a syntactic structure).[3]

Although the word forming processes follow the patterns used in other types of English, some are utilized more in legal English than otherwise, e.g. in derivation the distinction of the parties in contracts or legal disputes into the originator of some activity and the recipient or target of it is made by the former tending to have the suffix -ER or -OR (Lessor) and the latter commonly expressed by the suffix -EE (Lessee). [4]

allotter – allottee

appointor – appointee

assigner/assignor

– assignee/assign

bailer/bailor – bailee

donor – donee

drawer – drawee

employer – employee

evictor – evictee

examiner – examinee

franchisor – franchisee

insurer – insuree

legator – legatee

lessor – lessee

licensor – licensee

mortgagor – mortgagee

obligor – obligee

payer – payee

pledger – pledgee

remitter – remittee

transferor – transferee

Not all terms follow the above pattern:

(a) only one of the terms exists:

addressee

appraiser

auditor

(the court's) designee

depositor

detainee

executioner

executor

juror

nominee

parolee

refugee

testator

trustee

bidder

commissioner

complainant

(b) the two terms exist but one or both of them are formed from different bases (the suffix being -er, -or, rather than -ee):[5]

creditor – debtor

lender – borrower

principal – agent

seller – buyer/purchaser

Note: Although the -er, -or suffix tends to denote the party understood as the actor of some process or the source of a product, etc., i.e. it is conceived of as the active counterpart, whereas -ee tends to denote its opposite, that is the recipient, or the passive counterpart, there are instances in which the relationship is reversed:

mortgagor/mortgager – mortgagee

(b) another derivational morpheme not uncommon in legal English is -ant.:

affiant

appellant

applicant

claimant

complainant

defendant

informant

occupant

registrant

Some words belonging to the same major class behave differently as far as their sub-classification is concerned (e.g. modal verbs, proper nouns) and certain morphological types have a different distribution (for example, complex prepositions have a higher frequency of occurrence in legal English than in ordinary English).

Grammar

Learners of English are sometimes faced with questions about forms used by native speakers, for example in popular songs, which are not consistent with the grammatical rules that they have been taught. A typical example is “double negation”, i.e. a co-occurrence of two or more negative forms where grammar “requires” all except one to be replaced by non-assertive forms (mostly the any- forms). The explanation given by some teachers is that those speakers do not care about grammar and that in their performance they do not pay attention to any rules, they just speak as they like. This is a completely mistaken approach; every native speaker observes the rules which form a system, or sub-system, of the language and any deviation from the standard use is a manifestation of such a sub-system, no matter how different from the standard, but still representing a system in its own right. That is to say, a person’s idiolect constitutes a sub-system with its own rules and can be studied as such. This is relevant for all the linguistic levels. For example once a speaker uses the glottal stop instead of the [t] sound in some contexts, he/she will do so consistently and not only when being lazy or in a bad mood, etc. Even when the same speaker sometimes uses the [t] sound, it is because he or she has switched the register (using, for example, the glottal stop when talking to friends but the [t] sound when speaking to superiors). At the grammatical level, too, differences between registers occur and each register is governed by its own grammatical system. This is also the case in the varieties of English distinguished according to the subject matter, where legal English represents one such variety. Legal English is spoken and written mostly by highly educated people and their deviations from the norm in grammar cannot be viewed as “corrupted” grammar. Thus, for example, using the pronoun such without the article where such a is normal in standard English, does not mean that legal English is non-standard but that this use is consistent with the norms of legal English. Similarly, the use of the future tense in conditional and temporal clauses is a standard phenomenon in legal English though it is considered non-standard or incorrect in other educated uses of English. Legal English differs from other uses of English not only in special forms and structures used mostly or only in this register but also in the frequency of the forms used. So, for example, modal verbs, though representing more or less the same inventory as in other registers, have a different distribution within legal English. Apart from a few exceptions (e.g. Tiersma 1999), manuals of legal English pay very little attention to grammar. For example, the fact that shall is a typical marker of legal English is dealt with in Riley (1991: 166) with extreme brevity as follows: “Notice the use of shall in Article 3 of the Convention. Shall is often used in formal written laws and regulations.”

Conversely, only very few grammars of the English language find room to mention certain uses from the domain of law. One of the latest (Carter and McCarthy, 2006: 632–633) makes a comment on the uses of shall: “Shall also has a specialized legal usage for stating rules, laws, legal provisions, etc. In such cases, it often occurs with third person subjects: The insured shall remain the sole owner of the vehicle.“ On its almost 1000 pages this grammar makes no other reference to legal English ignoring even such typical features as, for example, the use of the pro-forms whose first part is here-, there-, and where-.

An article by Holdsworth (Internet), though making a few interesting observations about grammar aimed at German users of legal English, gives more space to how legal English should be simplified than to describing what it actually is. From the few linguistic observations in the article, we can pick the mentioning of the existence of conversion: “Many of the terms denoting some legal interest in property can be used either as a noun or a verb.” However, the statement makes no comment on whether this phenomenon works differently in legal English than otherwise. Conversion is widespread in other registers of English as well and in our study this particular feature did not emerge as exhibiting any uses restricted to, or typical of, legal English.

Pym (Internet) mentions the following grammar-related features of legal English:

“1. Sentence length: indifferent, can be as long as you like, 2. Written or spoken: very written, except in court, 3. Subordination: as much as you like, 4. Non-ambiguity is more important than readability, 5. Tense: general present, 6. Modals: may for rights, shall for obligations, 7. Deictics: to internally numbered sections, plus above/below, aforementioned, herein, hereinafter, etc., 8. Specialized terminology: in addition to that of the law, items such as whereas, wherefore, hereby, etc., 9. Variation: American documents are accessible; impact of Roman Law genres in Canada and the EU.”

Before dealing with the individual grammatical features of legal English it is necessary to point out that the general principles of grammar hold for legal English as well. The deviations from the general grammatical system are mostly alternatives, not the only means to be used. The choice should, therefore, be made with care.

Morphology

Although morphology tends to vary little in individual language registers, in legal English there are several noticeable peculiarities that help to distinguish legal texts from other kinds of texts.[6] Some forms that are considered archaic in ordinary English have their place in legal English. They will be dealt with in the individual sections but we can at least mention the -th morpheme formerly used in the third person singular, which is still found in witnesseth (used as a formal element introducing a preamble). Although this is an isolated case of the use of this morpheme, it is found in the headings of some legal texts and contributes to their differentiation from other texts by its prominent placement on the page calling our attention even before we read the document. Foreign plurals may appear in legal English where domestic plurals are used in other registers or at least they are more resistant to replacement by regular domestic forms. A large number of morphological peculiarities can be found especially among the pro-forms, of which some are almost unique to legal English and others are used in situations that would require different pronouns or other linguistic means. The category of mood (whether expressed by special verb forms, such as the be-subjunctive, or by the subsystem of modal verbs) is yet another area that exhibits most striking differences in comparison to non-legal uses. The subsystems of connecting words (prepositions, conjunctions), too, are distinct not only in frequency but also in the inventory of the individual items.

Word classes

Although the word classes used in legal English are the same as those used in other registers of English, it is uncommon to find, e.g., interjections, which seldom appear in any formal style. In the spoken language of court proceedings, however, certain instructions are given in the form which can be included in the word class of interjections, e.g. Oyez!

One of the few persons who can use expressions akin to interjections is the official called the crier who makes announcements in court. The presiding judge calls those present to order by using Order! as an interjection. Of course, those speaking in court are normally expected to refrain from emotional speech, although it can be difficult or impossible for the persons who are examined as witnesses, victims, etc., to observe this requirement.

Some linguists include in the class of interjections words and phrases also known as discourse markers, utterance initiators, etc. Within legal English, too, special discourse markers are used in spoken language, e.g. in court, and in building up the written text to show its cohesion.

Adjectives used as modifiers tend to be less frequent than in ordinary English. It is relatively rare for a noun phrase to contain two or more adjectives modifying a head. There is practically no intensification of adjectives. While adjectives used as premodifiers are mostly descriptive, rather than restrictive, in non-legal uses of English, in legal English adjectives are used to contribute to making the meaning of the head more precise, manifesting a tendency to be restrictive rather than descriptive. Predicative adjectives following the nouns are a specialty of this word class in legal English. The comparative and superlative forms of the adjectives are not very common in legal texts. The few of them that do occur are comparative and superlative forms of a very small inventory of adjectives (the most frequent are earliest, nearest, best, especially in the phrase to be in somebody’s best interest).[7] Analytical comparatives and superlatives with more and most are not frequent either, in spite of the fact that legal English gives otherwise preference to analytical features. Comparatives and superlatives borrowed from Latin are occasionally used, and since they lack the formal features associated with this category, they are not felt as comparisons (e.g., a minor child, although referring to a child of less than 18 years old, is not perceived as implying a comparison).

Adverbs, too, are relatively limited in their occurrence in legal English, especially adverbs of manner and intensifying adverbs. On the other hand, some adverbs are used almost exclusively in legal English:

jointly and severally

I verily believe the signature to be true.

Pronouns (especially central pronouns, i.e. personal, possessive, reflexive) have a surprisingly low frequency in legal English. This is due to the need for precision in naming the persons and things spoken about, as reference to them by pronouns could give rise to ambiguities. Therefore, noun phrases which in non-legal texts are replaced by pronouns are often left unchanged in legal texts:

A judge may issue a transfer order if at the hearing the judge determines that ...

On the other hand, there exist pro-forms used only or predominantly in legal English, e.g. the there-, here- and where- forms (combined with prepositions as their second element). Assertive and non-assertive pronouns, as well as universal pronouns, are frequent, especially any, every, each, all, compounds with every-, any-, some-, no- are less common. As will be shown below, some forms not considered to be pronouns, or those that are on the periphery of pronouns in non-legal uses of English, behave as central pronouns in legal texts (said, same, person, etc.).

As far as prepositions are concerned, apart from the preposition of, which is mostly used as a connecting element, the most frequent simple prepositions are by, under, for and on. It is noteworthy that by and under in particular are much more common in legal texts than elsewhere. This can be explained by the frequent references to various legal provisions in which under is synonymous with according to and other similar phrases. The preposition under also occurs with nominal structures of a passive nature:

under investigation – being investigated

under arrest – being arrested

under oath – being sworn

Numerals are often used in legal English although they do not show any particular features different from non-legal uses, simply because quantitative data can be important in law. It is noteworthy that when numeric information is given in legal texts, the more common practice is to spell out the numerals first and then repeat them in figures in brackets, e.g.[8]

The Lessee shall pay a monthly rent of eight hundred US dollars (USD 800.-).

As security for the correct fulfillment of this agreement the Buyers shall pay a deposit of ten per cent (10%) of the Purchase Price within five (5) banking days from the date of this Agreement.

However, the reverse ordering also exists:

Purchase price of USD 2,220,000 (United States Dollars Two Million Two Hundred and Twenty Thousand only) in cash.[9]

Dates are often written as follows: [10]

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and affixed my seal of Office in Des Moines, aforesaid, this 12th day of February 2007.

this 12th day of February two thousand and seven.

this twenty-ninth of May 2007.

In witness whereof this Power of Attorney has been signed and delivered on February 12, 2007.

on twenty-ninth May 2007.

When only figures are used to represent dates, the day, month, and year are separated by hyphens or slashes, usually not by dots. In British documents the order is day-month-year, American documents normally give dates in the order month-day-year. So, when translating an American document containing, e.g., the date marked as 8-7-2007 or 8/7/2007, it should be represented as 7.8.2007 when translated, e.g., into German, or Czech, etc. In translating into English it is recommended to write the month in full or in abbreviation in order to avoid misunderstanding as to whether the British or the American sequence was employed. In giving clock time it is recommended to use the a.m. and p.m. abbreviations in English, in translating from English the 24 hour cycle is more common in many languages when used officially.

Numerals in English are written with the decimal point where in some languages they are written with a comma. The comma, on the other hand, is used to separate each three digits left of the decimal point. This can sometimes be misleading as the same symbols may be used the other way round in some languages. [11]

3,000,333.28 three million, three hundred and thirty-three point twenty-eight

Nouns

In keeping with the nominal tendencies in the English language, nouns are sometimes used in constructions with semantically vague verbs to refer to processes, where other languages give preference to verbal constructions. This tendency is perhaps even stronger in legal English:[12]

to make an appeal, to make a decision, to make a record of the payment, to make a written application

to give a description, to give effect to, to give a notice, to give evidence in court, to inflict punishment, to take possession of, to take action.

Proper nouns

In some legal texts common nouns referring to the parties to a contract or to legal proceedings, as well as other common nouns acting as key words in the text (often specially defined for the given purpose, thus having their meaning restricted, or unique) are distinguished from the same words used in their more common meanings by capitalizing their initials. Restricted in their use to just one particular person or item, they are then treated, more or less, as proper nouns, which is also manifested in some cases in their use without determiners.

The legal documents following this practice often contain a special introductory article entitled “Definitions” that defines the terms used throughout the document in a special meaning. Here is how definitions can be introduced:[13]

1.01. Definitions. Except as otherwise defined herein, all capitalized terms used herein shall have the meanings respectively ascribed to them in the Loan Agreement.

The defined nouns are subsequently used with capital initials wherever the meaning shown in the definitions is intended. If the same terms are used in their ordinary meaning the initials are not capitalized:

In consideration of Seller’s permission to Purchaser to take possession of the premises, Purchaser agrees…

This Agreement may be amended only by an agreement in writing signed by each of the parties hereto.

Count and non-count nouns

The classification of nouns into count and non-count (also called countable and uncountable/mass nouns) can be subject to transition (or conversion) between the two subclasses. In legal English it is mainly the conversion of a non-count noun to a count noun that is immediately noticeable:

When a legal or judicial mortgage securing an indebtedness due by a former owner of property is sought to be enforced...

... if the offense be a misdemeanor, the attorney shall forthwith prepare an information based upon such complaint and file the same in the court having jurisdiction; provided, that in counties having no county attorney, misdemeanor cases may be tried upon complaint alone, without an information, provided, however, in counties having one or more criminal district courts an information must be filed in each misdemeanor case.

Number

In order to achieve better precision, nouns in coordinated singular and plural form are sometimes used to provide for all possibilities of interpretation, e.g.

The Bank will be entitled to sell …, grant an option or options to purchase or otherwise dispose of all or any part of the Real Property in one or more parcels, at public or private sale or sales, …

A legal document can make reference to either one or several persons involved as parties or in another capacity. As is indicated above, a legal document sometimes contains a specific provision about the validity of certain nouns in the sense of referring to entities understood both as singular and plural. A statutory provision referring to grammatical number is quoted in the Introduction (see above). References to the meaning of singular and plural terms are also found in other legal documents, such as contracts:

Except as otherwise defined herein, all capitalized terms used herein shall have the meanings respectively ascribed to them in the Agreement. Such definitions shall be equally applicable to the singular and plural forms of the terms defined.

The names of legal entities (business companies, foundations, banks, etc.) can have either singular or plural form. As they represent units formed by groups of people, they are often treated as plurals including in the cases where the name itself is singular in form. Sometimes the name appears as the apposition to the pronoun we, e.g.

We, the undersigned company styled Excellence Ltd., hereby appoint …

Some nouns, e.g. money, used only in the singular in some other registers can be found in the plural (moneys or monies) in legal English.[14]

No third party or agents, insurers, or attorneys for third parties shall participate in the settlement or resolution of such an action if they actually know, or should know, that the claimant or victim has received moneys from the fund and is subject to the subrogation provisions of this article.

All such agents, insurers, and attorneys are personally liable to the fund for any moneys paid to a claimant or victim in violation of this subsection, up to the full amount of the fund's right to reimbursement.

Moneys in the above examples illustrates the shift of meaning in some plurals, its meaning being ‘funds’. In legal English, similarly as in other registers, some nouns acquire a new meaning in the plural besides the original meaning, for example present, damage. The translator is thus faced with the problem of deciding which meaning is appropriate in the given context:

To all those to whom these presents shall come…

Award damages…

Information used as a count noun has the plural form with -s. Its meaning is shifted to ‘report on somebody’.

The party states find that charges outstanding against a prisoner, detainers based on untried indictments, informations, or complaints, and difficulties in securing speedy trial of persons already incarcerated in other jurisdictions, produce uncertainties which obstruct programs of prisoner treatment and rehabilitation.

Some nouns, e.g. proof, evidence, corresponding to nouns used in both numbers in some other languages, are used as non-count singular only nouns in English. Therefore they are not preceded by the indefinite article, e.g.

When the accused has been brought before the magistrate, he shall hear proof as to the accusation...

Whenever it appears by satisfactory evidence to any judge authorized to issue such writ ...

A special case is when a noun normally used only in the plural (at least in the meaning in question) needs to be used with reference to a single entity. Here, to avoid confusion, the plural ending remains with the noun but since the noun is used in the singular meaning, it can combine with the indefinite article or, when used as the subject, with a singular verb. We have encountered the noun premises used several times in this way and presume the following are not just isolated cases:

An order entered pursuant to this section may not authorize a covert entry into or onto a premises for the purpose of intercepting an oral communication unless:

A person commits an offense if the person intentionally or knowingly hinders the entrance of a justice of the peace to a premises where a death occurred or a body is found.

... the premises into or onto which the covert entry is authorized or the person whose communications are to be obtained has been the subject of an interception of wire or electronic communications previously authorized in connection with the same investigation ...

Case

The ’s genitive is used in legal English with a relatively limited number of nominal expressions, the typical ones being, e.g., person, entity, corporation, defendant, judge, court, principal, state, attorney general, victim, sporadically also temporal nouns, e.g. day, month, exceptionally other nouns such as vehicle (vehicle’s owner) or the pronoun the latter. It is hard to determine its frequency since one work of literature can have 10 times more ’s genitives than another. As the above exemplification of the nominal expressions reveals, the ’s inflection occurs mostly with a rather restricted group of nouns, more restricted than in non-legal English. The preposition of, which is a common alternative to the ’s genitive, has a much higher incidence in the legal texts examined, being about four times as frequent as in literary texts. This can be due to the fact that legal English is rich in nominal expressions involving complex noun phrases. The of construction tends to be restrictive rather than descriptive in its meaning, a factor which suits the nature of legal English. On the contrary, modification by adjectives tends to be descriptive, which explains the relatively low incidence of adjectival pre-modifiers as compared to post-modifiers in noun phrases.

One interesting use is the ’s genitive morpheme added to nouns converted from -ed participles:

If the accused is a deaf person, the accused’s statement under Section 2 or Section 3(a) of this article is not admissible against the accused unless the warning in Section 2 of this article is interpreted to the deaf person by an interpreter who is qualified and sworn as provided in Article 38.31 of this code.

It is important to note that the ’s genitive can be formed from a coordinated nominal structure and relates to all coordinated elements, e.g. an owner or interest holder's interest in property, the Secretary of State's office.

Similarly as in non-legal uses the plural of the ’s genitive is less frequent than the singular.

Gender[15]

In statutory regulations the pronoun he is understood to include both the masculine and feminine gender. Pronominal forms such as the phrase he or she or s/he, as well as the plural they, them used with reference to one person, etc. are not as frequent as in non-legal texts:

This jurisdiction must be based upon the submission of the party to the exercise of jurisdiction over him…

In the whole of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure the masculine third person singular pronoun he occurs 475 times. Its feminine counterpart she has zero occurrence. His and him counted together occur 318 times, while their feminine counterpart her again has zero occurrence.

In legal documents such as contracts, powers of attorney, etc., natural persons and legal entities may act in a similar way, i.e. either of them can be a seller, a principal, an appointee, a secretary. Even where it is known that a particular position is held by a natural person (of masculine or feminine gender), the possibility (although sometimes merely theoretical) for such a position to be held by a legal entity prevails and results in the selection of the neuter pronoun it. (This also solves the problem of the choice of the pronoun when the gender of the natural person in question is unknown or the position can be held by a person of either gender.)

The Mortgagor hereby covenants that it will: (a) do or permit to be done …

The plural form they, which is a common means for avoiding the gender distinction in ordinary non-legal, is not used in legal English. On the other hand, when a company refers to itself, it usually uses the plural pronoun we, since the singular I would be interpreted as referring to a natural person. This use can be extended also to sole traders who are simultaneously a legal entity and a natural person.

A similar instance is that of the use of the relative pronoun which after nouns having human associations. Again, the problem of the choice of the pronoun used in co-reference with a noun referring to either a natural person or a legal entity is solved by favouring the non-human pronoun:

Any legal owner which in the regular course of its business conducts sales of repossessed or surrendered motor vehicles may take possession and conduct the sale of the vehicle if it notifies the officer to whom the vehicle is surrendered of its intent to conduct the sale within 15 days of the mailing of the notice pursuant to subdivision (a).

As can be seen, gender is a property of pronouns rather than of nouns.

Definiteness

As has already been pointed out, in legal documents such as business contracts, the parties involved are named by contrasting terms, e.g., as the Lessor and Lessee, Buyer and Seller, etc. These names are first defined as standing for the concrete natural persons or legal entities, often by a phrase as, e.g.,

(hereinafter referred to as the ‘Buyer’),

or alternatively, the name intended to be used throughout the document for a particular party is used in brackets and in inverted commas (the “Buyer”). The same practice is used for reference to other notions and entities defined, e.g.

… the Mortgagor hereby unconditionally and irrevocably provides to the Bank … a first ranking mortgage over land, buildings and immovable assets of the Mortgagor listed in Annex I hereto (the ‘Real Property’).

In the above example the phrase Real Property in inverted commas and capitalized will be, whenever used with capital initials throughout the same document, understood as land, buildings and immovable assets of the Mortgagor listed in Annex I. Since Real Property thus acquires unique reference it is treated as a proper name. Having acquired the status of proper nouns, such names often occur without determiners, the conversion from common to proper nouns thus becoming complete. [16]

The inventory of determiners or other similar (mainly anaphoric) markers is enriched with some markers specific for legal English. For example, such (used in various functions, e.g. as a pre-determiner in ordinary English) is used as a determiner pronoun (not followed by the indefinite article). The form said is no longer felt as a verb form. It is used either preceded by the (thus functioning as a post-determiner) or at the beginning of the NP (functioning as a determiner pronoun with a definite meaning used only anaphorically), e.g.

I. W., Presiding Judge of the Superior Court … do hereby certify that J.A. CLARKE is Executive Officer of the Superior Court…; that the signature to the foregoing certificate is the genuine signature of the said J.A. CLARKE as such officer is the legal custodian of the original records ..., is the proper officer having the authority to execute the said certificate, and such attestation is in due and proper form.

The Court of Criminal Appeals, the District Courts, the County Courts, or any Judge of said Courts, have power to issue the writ of habeas corpus;

Such definitions shall be equally applicable to the singular and plural forms of the terms defined.

The counterpart of the two determiner pronouns in the function of a noun-phrase pronoun (see below) is the phrase (the) same. In ordinary English the personal pronoun it or they would be used, e.g.

…that the foregoing is a full, true and correct copy of the original…and that I have carefully compared the same with the original.

I, CONNY B. McCORMACK, Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk of the County of Los Angeles, State of California, the same being a public entity having by law a seat, do hereby certify…

Actually, the additional inventory of both determiner and NP pronouns is not evenly distributed over the functions of this class of words. In general, definite determiners and NP pronouns with a definite meaning, the class of which is enriched by the above items (such, same, said), are used anaphorically (referring back to something in the preceding context), cataphorically (referring to something to be found in the context that comes after the NP to which they belong), or exophorically (establishing a link with the situation). Of these three uses legal English avails itself only of the anaphoric function. This is because cataphoric and exophoric reference as such is not needed in legal expressions.

In legal texts the determiner pronoun any has a very high frequency. As its meaning is ‘no matter which’ it logically indicates that no item of the particular class is excluded and therefore all items come into consideration. Thus it can be treated as synonymous with all, with which it is sometimes coordinated (any and all, any or all), and obviously has a universal rather than selective meaning. In the following paragraph, which represents one legal provision, the word any appears several times in various functions:

Where a defendant, in the course of a criminal action, gives bail before any court or person authorized by law to take same, for his personal appearance before a court or magistrate, to answer a charge against him, the said bond shall be valid and binding upon the defendant and his sureties, if any, thereon, for the defendant's personal appearance before the court or magistrate designated therein, as well as before any other court to which same may be transferred, and for any and all subsequent proceedings had relative to the charge, and each such bond shall be so conditioned except as hereinafter provided.

The phrase any person who is typically used in the individual provisions of the criminal code.

Any person who commits an assault against a member of the United States Armed Forces because of the victim's service in the United States Armed Forces shall be punished by a fine.

It is interesting to note that in the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, of which we used a sample consisting of approx. 368,000 words, the word any appears 2362 times, while the same item appears 21 times in a sample of literary text of 70,600 words (i.e. a text about five times shorter), which multiplied by 5 to get comparable data, still has just over a hundred occurrences in a text of the same length as the legal source.

On the other hand, some appears 71 times in the literary sample, thus being about 3.4 times more frequent, while in the legal sample the ratio is about 32 occurrences of any per one occurrence of some.

Some

Any

Words total

Literary text
(× 5)

71 × 5 = 355

21 × 5 = 105

70,600 × 5 = 353,000

Legal text

74

2362

368,000

The determiner any, when used in non-legal texts, occurs mainly in non-assertive sentences (mostly negative sentences, questions, conditional clauses). In legal English questions hardly occur and very few of the contexts in which any is used are negative (those which are negative are mostly marked as such by using the inherently negative structures with fail).

Although any can potentially function both as a determiner and as an NP pronoun, the latter hardly ever occurs, the only notable exceptions being the relatively frequent phrase if any (in the meaning of ‘if there are any such things’, etc.), and the use of any followed by the preposition of (any one is discussed later), e.g.

Any of the designations, preferences, limitations, and relative rights, including voting rights, of any class or series of shares may be made dependent upon facts ascertainable outside the articles of incorporation.

Any most frequently precedes nouns, less frequently nouns preceded by adjectives (in such cases the most frequent adjectival word is other).

In addition to any other liabilities imposed by law upon directors of a corporation…

Zero determiner

In non-legal English a zero determiner is used mainly in some phrases relating to the activities carried out in certain places but not necessarily the places themselves. These include phrases like at/to school, in/to hospital, but also phrases used in legal English to/in prison/jail, in (open) court (meaning ‘a court session’) in chambers (‘in a private hearing’). Such phrases are not absent in legal English, and, in addition, other uses of the zero determiner can be found as well. For example, phrases with the noun counsel are generally used with a zero determiner. When used with a restrictive modifier, however, the definite article is used, e.g.

... if the defendant is not represented by counsel and the court finds that the defendant is not able to obtain counsel for the purposes of the proceeding, the court shall appoint counsel to represent the defendant at the proceeding.

The interpreter may not disclose a communication between the defendant and defense counsel or a fact that came to the attention of the interpreter while interpreting those communications if defense counsel may not disclose that communication or fact.

If the defendant withdraws a waiver, the trial court, in its discretion, may provide the appointed counsel 10 days to prepare.

As is mentioned above, the participants in legal relations (parties, etc.), once they have been defined as such, are named by common nouns with a zero determiner (behaving like proper nouns).

In legal English the relative pronoun which is used as an anaphoric determiner pronoun, i.e. followed by a noun, in spite of the fact that such use is not recommended in non-legal English (see the following section on pronouns).

He falsely testified that he was truthful to his aides when he gave accounts of his relationship, which accounts were subsequently disseminated to the media and the grand jury.

The accused in any felony case shall have the right to an examining trial before indictment in the county having jurisdiction of the offense, whether he be in custody or on bail, at which time the magistrate at the hearing shall determine the amount or sufficiency of bail, if a bailable case.

As is well known, the indefinite article developed from the numeral one and as such preserves the meaning of ‘oneness’. In legal English the word one is often used where non-legal English has a/an instead.

Whenever, in the presence or within the observation of a magistrate, an attempt is made by one person to inflict an injury upon himself or to the person or property of another, including the person or property of his spouse, it is his duty to use all lawful means to prevent the injury.

The state may not file an answer after the 30th day after the date of service, except that for good cause the convicting court may grant the state one 30-day extension.

One is also used instead of the indefinite article when the meaning of ‘a certain’ is implied with proper names, e.g. one Emily French.

[1] A magyar jogi nyelv kevesebb latin kifejezést használ. Részletesen l. később.

[2] Ezek a magyar jogi nyelvben is megtalálhatóak és fordításuk a szöveget szakszerűvé, a nyelvhasználatot pedig a regiszternek megfelelővé teszi.

[3] A magyar jogi nyelvben ezek használata nem szokásos, felesleges szószaporításnak minősülhetnek. Ennek megfelelően a szó szerinti fordításuk is csak akkor indokolt, ha a pár mindkét eleme egy fontos és eltérő elemet ragad meg. Ellenkező esetben (pl. This agreement is concluded by and between) elég a rövidített fordítás (A jelen szerződés köttetett x és y között).

[4] A magyar jogi nyelv is ismeri ezt a szóképzési lehetőséget: lásd munkáltató – munkavállaló, biztosító – biztosított vagy akár letevő – letéteményes.

[5] Magyarban is a „hitelező” adja a kölcsönt, de azt nem a „hitelezett” veszi fel, hanem az „adós”. És az esküdt párja sem az esküvő.

[6] Ezeket a nyelvi jelenségeket sokszor lehetetlen visszaadni, és a magyar fordításokból ezek a stílusjegyek hiányozni fognak.

[7] A nemzetközi szerződésekből ez a kifejezés a magyar jogi nyelvben is meghonosodott és talán kicsit idegenül hangzik: lásd a „gyermek legjobb érdeke” vagy a „legjobb kereskedelmi gyakorlat”. Más összetételben viszont természetesnek hat: lásd a „legjobb tudomása szerint”.

[8] A magyar gyakorlat nem ezt követi. A mennyiségeket számmal jelöljük meg, és csak szükség esetén, az egyértelműség kedvéért írjuk ki betűvel is. Fordításoknál ezért el kell térni a forrásnyelvi formától.

[9] A mennyiséget lezáró „only” nem fordítandó.

[10] Magyarban gyakoribb a teljes dátum megjelölése, például: „Ellenjegyzem 2010. augusztus 2. napján Szekszárdon.”

[11] Magyarban itt nem vesszőt, hanem pontot kell használni. Esetenként a pont vagy a vessző helyett a space határolja el az ezreseket: 3425 eFt. Pénzügyi jogban, beszámolókban gyakori az eFt (ezer forint) használata, amely nem jellemző az angolban. Figyelni kell még a gyakori hibát jelentő tizedes vesszőre is, ami az angolban nem vessző, hanem pont.

[12] Hasonló jelenség a magyarban a „megfellebbez” helyett a „fellebbezéssel él” vagy „bepanaszol” helyett a „panasszal él”.

[13] Ez a gyakorlat a magyar jogi nyelvben is terjed. Nem csak a feleket (Eladó, Adós, Vállalkozó) jelöli nagy kezdőbetű, hanem a kulcsfontosságú és időnként külön meghatározás tárgyát képező fogalmak is (pl. Zárás, Mérlegfordulónap, Vételi jog stb.) Nincs egységes gyakorlat viszont abban, hogy a több tagú összetételek minden tagját nagy kezdőbetűvel kell-e írni, vagy csak az összetétel első tagjáét. A kiemeléseket – ha a forrásszöveg használta – természetesen minden esetben fordítani kell. Ha a forrásszöveg kiemeléssel nem él, akkor használatukat nem javaslom.

[14] Ezeket a többesszámú és így általános jelentésű fogalmakat fordíthatjuk a „bármilyen” vagy a „minden olyan ... melyet” fordulattal vagy konkretizálhatunk is: „bármilyen pénzösszeg”.

[15] A magyar nyelv a nemek közti különbségeket nem tudja a névmásokkal megjeleníteni. Ezért, ha az alany nemének megjelenítése jelentést hordoz, konkretizálni kell: „a nő által elindított”, „a férfi által átvett” stb.

[16] A magyar jogi szövegekben nincs egységes gyakorlat abban, hogy a feleket vagy a meghatározásokban felsorolt dolgokat „tulajdonnevesítsük” és névelő nélkül használjuk, vagy a névelő használata maradjon meg. Mindkettő bevett gyakorlat és csak a szerző egyéni választását tükrözi a szóhasználat pl. „A Vevő köteles a vételárat 5 napon belül megfizetni.” vagy „Megbízó megbízza Megbízottat, Megbízott pedig vállalja, hogy …”

„Lapozz bele!” módban ezek az oldalak nem érhetőek el.

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