Catalan to Bhojpuri: possessive gender is not the owner’s identity
The Catalan ending primarily follows the possessed noun
Catalan seu and seva belong to a possessive system agreeing with the possessed noun. They do not independently establish a male or female owner. Bhojpuri possession must therefore be constructed from the actual source relationship, rather than by translating a feminine-looking possessive as her.
The IEC illustrates la seva taula through an equivalent expression identifying Gemma as owner. The noun taula determines the source feminine agreement, while the owner is identified through the wider reference. In another context, the same possessive form can relate a table to a different participant.
Gopal Thakur Lohar’s Bhojpuri grammar lists ओकर, okʌr, for his or her possession. A target form that does not distinguish the owner’s sex can consequently preserve the source relationship accurately. It should not be judged incomplete simply because Catalan has a visible feminine or masculine possessive ending.
When several people appear in a source paragraph, the important question is which one the possessive refers to. Adding an owner’s name can make the relationship recoverable, but the translation should not invent a gender distinction from the source noun’s agreement.
My and mine can share a Bhojpuri form
Thakur lists हमार, ɦʌmɑr, as both my and mine and illustrates use as a determiner and an independent possessive. Catalan likewise permits possessives in different syntactic functions, including the IEC’s la taula és seva, the table is theirs or his or hers according to context.
For this direction, determine whether the source possessive accompanies a noun or forms the main attribution. A target possessive standing without a repeated noun can be appropriate when the construction identifies ownership independently. Its shortness is not evidence that an item has disappeared.
Conversely, an independent source assertion of ownership should not be reduced to a modifier that leaves the sentence without its intended predication. The question who owns this differs from the question which owned item is being discussed, even when the same possessive vocabulary occurs in both.
The Bhojpuri grammar also distinguishes plural-owner expressions such as हमनी के, ɦʌmni ke, our. Catalan source plural agreement on an item does not by itself establish plural ownership. The number of owners and the number of possessions must be read separately before selecting the target expression.
A source possessive can occur inside a personal relationship
Catalan unstressed possessives have restricted uses that include kinship expressions such as mon pare. The IEC distinguishes this construction from the more general stressed possessive series. Different source surface forms can therefore identify the same first-person family relationship.
Bhojpuri kinship messages should retain that relationship without treating the Catalan possessive type as a new degree of ownership. A source father or sister remains related to the same person whether Catalan uses a stressed possessive or a permitted unstressed form.
Thakur’s grammar is primarily based on Bara-Parsa Bhojpuri and acknowledges regional variation. Its possession examples provide concrete guidance without establishing that every Bhojpuri variety realises all related constructions identically. The central comparison remains precise: recover the Catalan owner, distinguish attribution from modification and preserve owner number without treating source gender agreement as evidence about the owner’s sex.
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