Catalan to Malay: distinguish a denied description from an added benefit
A correction and an addition can look deceptively alike
Catalan no followed by sinó can replace a rejected description with a different one. In no tan sols followed by sinó també, however, the second description adds something without rejecting the first. That difference matters when translating to Malay: an explanation can accidentally deny an activity which the Catalan actually says happened.
The IEC illustrates replacement with No tinc vint anys sinó trenta: the speaker is thirty, rather than twenty. The first number is excluded. A translation which merely coordinates the two numbers with an additive expression would change the claim, even if both numerals survived accurately.
Before selecting the Malay negative, identify the two propositions in the Catalan sentence. Are both being affirmed, or is one being corrected? In a description of qualifications, for instance, additional experience and experience replacing a wrongly stated qualification are different messages. The small Catalan words tan sols and també can settle that distinction.
Why Catalan no does not always become Malay tidak
Malay distinguishes bukan from tidak. The DBP explanation assigns bukan to noun and prepositional predicates, and tidak to verbs and adjectives in ordinary negation. Catalan can use no across these environments, often alongside an inflected copula. Consequently, identifying the Catalan negative word alone does not determine the Malay construction.
The attested Malay Dia bukan dari Ipoh means that the person is not from Ipoh. This is a denial of origin expressed with a prepositional phrase. A Catalan source with no and a form of ser must be understood as that origin claim; mechanically reproducing the source copula and a default negative misses the target predicate structure.
Contrast also affects the choice. DBP gives Dia bukan sombong tetapi pendiam, contrasting arrogance with being reserved. Thus an adjective does not make bukan automatically erroneous when the sentence explicitly replaces one characterization with another. This is particularly relevant to Catalan corrective sinó, where the rejected and replacement descriptions belong together.
Keep the scope of only, rather than turning addition into exclusion
The Malay pairing bukan sahaja … tetapi juga supports addition. It can carry the logic of Catalan no tan sols … sinó també: the first activity remains true and another is added. The negative-looking opening belongs to a larger expression, so it should not be interpreted as a denial of the first activity by itself.
The PRPM dictionary gives sahaja the central restrictive senses of only or merely, alongside other uses. In this translation problem, locating that restriction is more useful than counting negative words. Catalan denies the limitation to one activity; it need not deny the activity. The target must preserve that scope.
A practical test is to rewrite the Catalan claim mentally as two affirmative statements. If both statements remain intended, choose an additive analysis. If the first becomes false once the second is supplied, choose a corrective analysis. This distinguishes two closely related Catalan constructions before Malay predicate type determines the remaining grammatical choices.
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