Bosnian to Querétaro Otomi: a temporary property is not automatically a lexical compound
The source adjective pattern does not identify a target word class
Columbia’s Bosnian lesson treats color expressions as adjectives agreeing with their noun in gender, number, and case. This is useful for analyzing how a source description belongs to a particular item. It does not imply that the corresponding property concept must be an adjective in Querétaro Otomi.
Palancar’s study analyzes property concepts through verbs and nouns, with most examples drawn from San Ildefonso Tultepec in Querétaro. Its account therefore supplies regional grammatical evidence rather than an interchangeable formula for every Otomi variety. The Bosnian descriptive phrase needs a construction appropriate to that target system.
A cold item and a conventional cold drink are different meanings
Palancar discusses lexical compounds involving cold and water. His examples distinguish a refreshment conventionally drunk cold from a formerly warm drink that has cooled. A source description containing a temperature word must therefore be interpreted beyond its simplest dictionary gloss.
For an original Bosnian scene where tea cools while a separate chilled refreshment is served, preserve the two histories. Both drinks can be cold now, but one description concerns a change from warmth and the other can identify a conventional type of beverage. Selecting a target lexical compound solely from the current temperature could collapse those distinct source meanings.
A possible word combination is not always an established target expression
The Otomi study contrasts attested compounds with combinations rejected in its analysis, including proposed cold-day and cold-hand compounds. It relates compound formation to conventionalized concepts rather than allowing every property word to combine freely with every noun.
This matters because Bosnian adjective agreement can make a new description grammatically regular without making it a fixed lexical category. A speaker can describe a hand as cold on a particular occasion. That source flexibility does not license inventing an Otomi compound by joining two dictionary entries. Express the property through an appropriate documented target construction instead of treating the rejected compound pattern as productive.
A descriptive state and a change into that state need separate interpretation
Palancar also distinguishes stative property verbs from related inchoative expressions in his account, and discusses lexical compounds that select one rather than the other. The target distinction concerns whether a property holds or an entity comes to have it, as well as the construction in which it appears.
For a Bosnian passage describing food becoming stale, retain the change rather than translating only an existing stale condition. Conversely, a simple source description of stale food need not introduce an explicit earlier fresh state as a separate asserted event. Identify the source entity, the property, and whether a change is being described before building the Querétaro Otomi expression. Noun agreement in the Bosnian phrase identifies its internal relationship; it does not decide whether the target needs a state predicate, a change predicate, or a conventional compound. The regional examples demonstrate why those choices can affect the meaning even when the translated food or drink noun is correct.
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