Bosnian to Lithuanian: a reflexive owner must remain anchored to the right subject
The shared idea of own still requires clause analysis
The Bosnian specification records svoj as a reflexive possessive with case, gender and number forms. Lithuanian has savo, a possessive form referring to the clause subject regardless of that subject’s person or number. The two systems provide a useful comparison, but a related function does not make every sentence a direct word replacement.
The Lithuanian grammar edited by Ambrazas illustrates savo across subjects meaning I, you, he, she and plural groups. The same target form does not permanently mean my or your. Its owner changes with the subject it refers back to.
For a Bosnian instruction asking a listener to contact their own parents, recover the person responsible for contacting them. A target with savo should anchor the parents to that subject. If the source instead means the writer’s parents, using the same reflexive pattern could assign the family relationship to the wrong person.
An ordinary genitive form is not always the possessive form
The Lithuanian reference distinguishes mano, tavo and savo in possession from manęs, tavęs and savęs in other genitive functions. A Bosnian source genitive should therefore not be translated by selecting any target form bearing the same case label.
The contrast is functional. The grammar’s Perskaityk mano laišką asks someone to read the writer’s letter. Another construction can use a different first-person genitive form where the speaker is involved as a participant rather than as owner. Similar personal roots do not make those environments interchangeable.
This matters when a source asks someone to wait for the writer and bring the writer’s letter. The same person is the anticipated arrival in one relation and the owner in another. The Lithuanian target may need different personal forms to preserve those roles even though the Bosnian message repeats reference to one individual.
Possessive-looking material can identify the actor in a passive
The grammar also documents mano or tavo expressing the semantic actor in a passive construction, illustrating a letter left by the writer or listener. A form used in possession elsewhere does not necessarily make the letter that person’s property in this environment.
A Bosnian source distinguishing whose letter it is from who left it therefore needs separate interpretation. The owner and the person performing the action can coincide, but they need not. A target should not infer ownership merely from the first-person-looking material attached to the passive claim.
If the source then refers to the same person’s own item, the target reflexive must be evaluated against the subject of that new clause. A writer’s report can shift from an action performed by one person to a possession associated with another. Reusing savo without checking that shift can preserve a familiar word while change the owner.
For this direction, follow the source actor and owner through every clause, distinguish possession from other genitive functions, and read passive actor expressions in their construction. Lithuanian can distribute these relationships across forms that resemble each other; their reference is established by syntax rather than by one permanent personal gloss.
Language references