Bosnian to Armenian: distinguish being somewhere from approaching it
The Bosnian place phrase helps identify the event
The study of Bosnian case marking by Jažić, Gagarina and Perovic discusses two-way prepositions and the distinction between accusative direction and locative location. In the constructions concerned, the case choice contributes to whether a place is presented as a destination or as the location of an event. Preserve that distinction when translating into Armenian.
A message about going into a building differs from a message about walking while already inside it. Both can contain movement and the same place name. Looking only for a motion verb is therefore insufficient: inspect the preposition, the noun phrase and the whole event before deciding what the Armenian sentence should say.
The researchers include nonstandard case choices among their elicited examples. Those examples are evidence about the study’s participants, not a phrasebook of forms to imitate. If an informal Bosnian message has an unexpected ending, use the surrounding context to understand its intended location or direction rather than reproducing a research error as a model.
An Armenian case name is not a direct conversion rule
The Armenian Universal Dependencies description illustrates a dative object with the verb meaning approach: its example describes approaching a city. This shows why a Bosnian destination meaning should not automatically be mapped to a target form called accusative. The Armenian predicate and its construction determine how the place is expressed.
The same documentation gives an expression of coming at midnight and describes temporal or locational noun phrases separately from verb-selected objects. A phrase next to a verb can therefore specify time, location or a participant relationship. Shared endings do not make those meanings interchangeable.
For a travel update, distinguish approaching the destination, arriving there and being there. The documented approaching construction does not itself assert arrival. A translation that changes approach into arrival can give the recipient an incorrect impression of someone’s progress even if the city name and time are preserved.
Check a route as a sequence of positions
Read a practical Bosnian direction in stages: where the traveler begins, which place they move toward and where the next action occurs. Then verify that the Armenian wording preserves those stages. A later instruction to wait inside a building should not be merged with an earlier instruction to move toward it.
If the source names an entrance, platform or room, retain it when it distinguishes the destination from a larger location. Replacing the specific place with only a city or building name can obscure the very contrast carried by the Bosnian phrase. Shortening is useful only when it leaves the route clear.
On reuse of a saved sentence, reconsider the place expression together with the verb. Changing wait to approach or arrive can require a different Armenian construction. Review whether the final message reports a position, a path or a completed arrival; matching a source and target case label alone cannot establish that the intended journey has been preserved.
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