Bangla to Cantonese: a continuing situation is not simply a past event
Being under construction needs an event viewpoint
A Bangla account can place an event in the past while presenting it as still in progress at that past moment. Cantonese requires attention to that viewpoint, rather than a blanket replacement of past tense with a completed-event marker. The Chinese University of Hong Kong’s grammar illustrates a building that was still being built at a specified earlier time.
The source example uses 起緊 for building in progress. If a Bangla message describes work still underway when somebody visited, the target should not report that the work had already finished. The reference time may be past, but the event was open at that time. Keeping those two facts separate is essential in progress reports about repairs or construction.
An experience question does not ask when an event finished
The Cantonese grammar distinguishes experiential 過 from perfective 咗. A Bangla question about whether somebody has ever tried a dish asks about experience, not necessarily about a particular recent meal. The target construction should preserve that open experiential perspective.
Its short example 食過 marks having eaten as an experience. Compare a Bangla enquiry about ever trying a dish with a report that somebody has just gone out. The latter concerns a particular event and its present relevance; the former asks whether any relevant occasion exists. Choosing one target marker simply because both source passages concern something before now would lose the difference.
Continuous accompaniment is not an unfinished departure
The grammar separately illustrates continuous 住 in a statement about remaining with somebody. The marker does not merely replicate every situation that an English explanation might call ongoing. Bangla source clauses need to be interpreted for the kind of continuation they describe before the Cantonese construction is selected.
The form 陪住 concerns accompanying or staying with somebody. A Bangla promise of continued companionship therefore differs from a report of an activity being performed at a particular moment. Both can extend through time, but they do not automatically require the same Cantonese aspect expression. In a message combining someone’s departure with another person staying, preserve which event changes the situation and which relationship continues.
The subject remains the same person across viewpoint changes
The Bengali grammar distinguishes ordinary and respectful third-person reference, as well as familiar and respectful address. Those source distinctions help establish who is being discussed, but they do not determine whether the person’s event is experiential, completed or continuing. Social reference and event viewpoint answer different translation questions.
A respectful Bangla report about a manager may describe a habitual arrangement in one sentence and a single completed departure in the next. The Cantonese translation must retain the manager as the relevant participant while changing the event construction where the source meaning changes. Conversely, switching from a respectful to a familiar interlocutor is not evidence that the reported activity has finished. Track the participant and the temporal structure independently to avoid a target that sounds coherent but reports a different sequence of events.
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