This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the existence of translation universals by investigating the use of aspect in modal contexts in translated and non-translated legal Polish and by analysing the observed differences with reference to insights from cognitive linguistics. Corpus analysis highlights significant distributional differences in the use of the two aspectual forms of Polish verbs (imperfective and perfective) in modal contexts. I argue that cognitive mechanisms called ‘chunking’ ( Langacker 1988 ; Bybee 2006 ) and ‘entrenchment’ ( Bybee 2010 ) underlie these differences. I show that what may at first glance seem as behaviour unique to the translation process, is in fact caused by general cognitive processes. The study has implications for both translation studies and cognitive linguistics: it offers support for the basic assumptions about the usage-based nature of linguistic knowledge and highlights the importance of taking these assumptions into consideration when investigating the translation process and translation universals.

中文翻译：

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翻译：普遍还是认知？

本文通过研究翻译和非翻译法律波兰语中情态语境中方面的使用，并参考认知语言学的见解分析观察到的差异，为有关翻译普遍性存在的持续辩论做出了贡献。语料库分析突出显示了在情态语境中使用波兰语动词的两种方面形式（不完美和完美）时存在明显的分布差异。我认为认知机制被称为“分块”（Langacker 1988； Bybee 2006）和“纠缠”（Bybee 2010）。我证明乍看之下似乎是翻译过程特有的行为，实际上是由一般的认知过程引起的。该研究对翻译研究和认知语言学都有影响：