Catalan to Amharic: the listener can require distinctions absent from tu
A second-person source pronoun does not specify every target feature
CPNL identifies Catalan tu as a second-person singular pronoun. It names the listener without choosing a masculine or feminine pronoun. That source form cannot by itself supply every distinction required by a target personal expression.
The Amharic Universal Dependencies documentation lists antä for a masculine singular addressee and anči for a feminine singular addressee. Its verbal paradigms likewise distinguish masculine and feminine second-person singular forms. A Catalan message addressed to one person therefore needs its actual addressee identified before such a target form is chosen.
A verb can supply gender information without a separate pronoun
The Amharic documentation illustrates nägärəkə and nägärəšə for you told, distinguishing masculine and feminine singular subjects. The distinction belongs to the verb’s agreement, not just to an independently written word for you.
CPNL notes that Catalan personal pronouns are often omitted because the discourse makes their reference recoverable. In an original Catalan reply reporting what the listener said yesterday, an absent tu does not eliminate the addressee. A translation can still need a gender-sensitive Amharic verb. Determine the participant from the exchange rather than assuming that a source sentence without a written pronoun has no personal information to preserve.
The listener as actor differs from the listener as recipient
The Amharic documentation separately illustrates object clitics, including nägärəkuhə and nägärəkušə for I told you with masculine and feminine singular addressees. These forms identify the recipient of the telling, while the verb also identifies the speaker as its actor.
For an original Catalan contrast between you told me and I told you, the same two people exchange roles. Selecting an Amharic expression only because it contains a second-person feature could reverse the report. First identify who spoke and who received the information. Then establish which target material represents subject agreement and which represents the object. The recipient’s gender does not change the actor into that recipient.
A courteous third-person Catalan form can still address the listener
CPNL contrasts informal tu with formal vostè, illustrating a third-person-shaped verb in a question addressed politely to one person. The source construction’s grammatical appearance must therefore be interpreted alongside its conversational use.
A Catalan letter asking vostè for an explanation is addressed to the recipient; it does not automatically describe an absent person. An Amharic translation needs a suitable way of addressing that recipient rather than mechanically converting every source third-person verb into a statement about somebody else. Conversely, an actual report about a third person should not become direct address simply because it resembles a courteous source construction.
Keep these decisions separate: who is being spoken to, who performs the reported action, and which gender and number distinctions the selected Amharic construction expresses. Catalan omission and formal address can conceal those relationships from a word-by-word comparison, while the target’s subject agreement and object clitics can make them visible inside a single written verb.
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