Basque to Icelandic: being at a place and moving into it require different readings
Basque location and direction are not interchangeable endings
Basque Bilbon identifies a location in Bilbao, while Bilbora identifies movement to Bilbao in Laka’s examples. The grammar distinguishes locative -n from directional -ra. An Icelandic rendering must preserve whether the place is where something happens or where somebody is going, rather than translate the place name and discard the relationship attached to it.
Laka illustrates Bilbon inside a description of a ring bought yesterday. Bilbao is the purchase location, not a destination to which the ring is being sent. Elsewhere, Miren Bilbora etor daiteke says that Miren can come to Bilbao. Here Bilbao is the destination, and the modal construction expresses possibility rather than a completed journey.
Icelandic can keep a preposition while changing the noun’s case
Þorbjörg Halldórsdóttir’s teaching grammar contrasts í skólanum with í skólann in sentences about being at school and going into school. The preposition remains í, while dative and accusative help distinguish location from directed movement. This demonstrates why looking only for a different Icelandic preposition may miss a crucial target distinction.
The same lesson contrasts á borðinu with á borðið when keys are on a table or somebody puts them onto it. The final position may resemble the starting position of a static description, but the placement event adds a change of location. A Basque directional phrase should not lose that change simply because the Icelandic preposition looks identical.
These school and table expressions are documented Icelandic illustrations, not prescribed translations of the Bilbao examples. Place names and different spatial relationships have their own target constructions. The lesson is to preserve the source location-versus-destination contrast, then select the Icelandic preposition and case that express that particular relationship.
The place can belong to an embedded event
In the Basque ring description, the place and yesterday modify the purchase inside the identifying phrase. If the Icelandic version makes Bilbao the ring’s current location instead, it changes the information. Something bought in a city can now be elsewhere, including with an owner outside Bilbao. A past purchase location does not establish where its owner keeps the ring today.
In Miren’s travel example, retain possibility separately from destination. A statement that she can come to Bilbao does not say that she is already there. Losing the directional relationship and losing the modal meaning would create two errors at once: a possible journey would become an asserted present location.
For Basque into Icelandic, determine which event each place expression modifies and whether it supplies a setting, destination or resulting position. Then let the target preposition and case convey that role. This keeps the purchase in Bilbao separate from a journey to Bilbao and prevents a small ending change from altering the practical whereabouts or plans of the people involved.
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