Bhojpuri to Bashkir: interpreting a postposition before choosing a suffix
के does not prescribe one Bashkir case
Bhojpuri can use के for accusative and dative relations in appropriate constructions. In a sentence about seeing someone, the marked participant is the thing or person seen; in a sentence about giving someone a book, the participant may be the recipient. Bashkir distinguishes direct-object marking from dative marking through its own case system.
The useful first step is therefore to identify the relation expressed by the Bhojpuri predicate. A single target suffix cannot stand for every occurrence of के. Its form must also fit the Bashkir noun to which it attaches. The source postposition and target suffix occupy different grammatical units even when both help identify a participant.
A Bashkir book can be a marked or unmarked object
Poppe contrasts the basic noun form used as an indefinite direct object with the accusative form used for a definite direct object. His reading examples distinguish китап, “a book” in that object use, from китапты, “the book.” These are not singular and plural forms; the contrast concerns how the object is identified.
Bhojpuri’s choice of object marking must not be equated mechanically with this Bashkir definiteness contrast. Thakur describes a system of case markers, clitics, and postpositions in which the same visible marker can serve different roles. The original passage must establish whether a particular already identified book is intended. Presence or absence of one source marker alone is insufficient to reconstruct every target distinction.
Neither should an unmarked Bashkir object be mistaken for a subject merely because it lacks an accusative suffix. Its position and relation to the verb still matter. This is especially relevant when both languages place many complements before the predicate, making a translated sequence look more structurally identical than it really is.
से can express a source rather than an instrument
Thakur gives भारत से नेपाल तक, “from India to Nepal,” with से identifying the starting point. He also documents instrumental uses of the same postposition. A Bashkir translation must separate these meanings rather than select one universal equivalent of से.
Bashkir has an ablative case for source relations, alongside postpositional expressions for other relations. Poppe further notes that personal pronouns can take a genitive form before postpositions that follow the basic form of an ordinary noun. Thus a phrase with “from India” and one with “with me” differ in both their semantic relation and the form of the dependent expression. A source-language postposition does not supply the complete target construction.
Ownership introduces a second layer of noun morphology
The Tatarstan Academy’s Bashkir description gives китабым for “my book.” The possessive suffix identifies the owner, while a case suffix can subsequently identify the book’s sentence role. Bhojpuri can express possession through genitive forms or markers associated with the owner. The target therefore reorganizes the relationship around the possessed noun.
This explains why a Bhojpuri expression about giving or taking someone’s book may produce several grammatical functions within one Bashkir noun. Ownership and object status are not competing translations of the same marker. Both may need expression, while the distinction between a definite object, a recipient, and a starting point continues to determine which case construction is appropriate.
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