Bodo to Lower Sorbian: two people requires a real participant count
Source plurality does not establish a target dual
Basumatary’s Bodo pronoun study distinguishes singular and plural forms and separate ordinary and honorific plural formations. Lower Sorbian has an actively used dual category, as documented by the DOBES project. A Bodo plural reference may therefore require a more precise count before the target number form is selected.
Two respected people and three respected people both constitute source groups, but a target dual should identify an actual pair. Conversely, a respected Bodo singular pronoun must not become a pair merely because the translator associates social respect with a non-singular target form. Count the intended referents rather than infer their number from politeness.
Humans and animals can both matter to the target pattern
Stone’s Sorbian grammar discussion distinguishes Lower from Upper Sorbian in masculine animate dual objects. His Lower Sorbian examples mam dweju konjowu and mam dweju wucabnikowu identify having two horses and two teachers. The comparison is specifically Lower Sorbian; an Upper Sorbian animal pattern should not be substituted as though the languages shared every detail.
A Bodo passage mentioning two teachers and two animals therefore needs the target construction checked for each noun, not a rule that only human pairs count as relevant duals. Preserve the actual group and the noun’s grammatical behaviour together. The semantic difference between people and animals does not justify dropping the target dual marking for an animal pair.
The owner group and the relative are different counts
Basumatary illustrates kinship terms incorporating person reference, including ada and bida for my elder brother and his or her elder brother. A Bodo passage mentioning a relative can therefore identify an owner relationship even without an independent pronoun beside the kinship noun. Recover that anchor before constructing Lower Sorbian ownership.
A pair of brothers can belong to one person’s family, while several people can refer to one shared relative. The target number category of the relative should not be selected from the number of owners. In a conversation about family members attending an event, count the attendees independently from the group whose family they belong to.
A restriction to one actor does not create a special plural group
The Bodo study uses an exclusive label for suffixes illustrated with only meanings. That focus restriction should not be interpreted as an exclusive-we category when translating into Lower Sorbian. A statement restricting attendance to one named person does not identify a group that excludes the listener.
Preserve the source restriction alongside the target count. If only two teachers attend, the translated account needs both the pair and the exclusion of additional attendees. If only one teacher attends, it must not acquire a dual simply because another person is discussed elsewhere. Group size, family anchoring and focus scope each contribute different information to the source event.
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