Bosnian to Basque: the actor’s case depends on the chosen predicate
A source nominative does not always remain an unmarked target form
Bosnian identifies grammatical subjects through nominative forms while distinguishing affected participants and recipients through other cases. Basque uses a different structural case arrangement. A source subject should therefore not automatically receive one invariant target form simply because it remains the same real-world person.
Goenaga’s UPV/EHU chapter contrasts Alkateak hitz egin du with Alkatea mintzatu da, two ways of expressing the mayor speaking. The subject is ergative in the first construction and absolutive in the second. Selecting the predicate can change the case required for the participant without changing their identity.
For a Bosnian account of an official speaking, do not add an extra person merely because the Basque subject has a different ending from its dictionary form. Conversely, a familiar unmarked-looking noun is not necessarily appropriate with every synonymous predicate. The target verb construction determines its structural relationships.
A k ending can combine number and case information
The EHU chapter explains how the plural determiner and ergative marking combine to produce -ek. The surface form must be understood as part of the whole noun phrase rather than treated as a detachable equivalent of one Bosnian suffix.
This matters when a source changes from one official to several officials. The target must retain that quantity while also marking the participant’s structural case. Matching only a final k would not establish whether the target describes one person or a group, or whether the noun occupies the intended role.
The Bosnian specification records case and number together across noun forms. That source information is useful, but the Basque phrase has its own pattern of combining those categories. First identify the source participants and their number, then construct the target case form required by the predicate. A visible suffix resemblance is not a grammatical correspondence.
A dative may identify more than a recipient
The Basque chapter treats the dative as part of constructions involving transfers, affected interests and some predicate-selected complements. It illustrates a contrast between Mikel liking rain expressed through an ergative construction and through a dative one. A dative person need not be someone receiving a physical object.
A Bosnian message about a colleague’s preference should therefore not become a transfer to that colleague merely because the Basque personal phrase is dative. Equally, a genuine recipient in a source request must retain its role within the target giving or bringing construction. Identical case labels do not guarantee identical event roles.
The EHU discussion explicitly cautions that structural cases do not carry one fixed semantic meaning. That is the useful principle for this pair: begin with the source event, not a list of endings. Determine who speaks, experiences a preference or receives something; then select a Basque predicate and the case relationships it requires. The translation can change the actor’s case or use dative experience while preserving the Bosnian meaning, provided the complete target construction represents the same participants and event.
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