Catalan to Upper Sorbian: two participants and a future event can change more than a pronoun
A source plural may correspond to a target dual
Catalan ordinary plural expressions can refer to two participants or a larger group. Upper Sorbian distinguishes singular, dual and plural across several parts of the sentence. A target can consequently require more specific number agreement than is visible in the Catalan pronoun alone.
The Upper Sorbian UD documentation records dual agreement on nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verbal forms. If a Catalan source introduces two named participants and later uses a plural verb, the target needs to retain the same pair rather than automatically treat every plural as a larger group.
This is not simply a decision to add a word meaning two. Number can affect several related target forms. A translation with a dual pronoun and incompatible plural agreement elsewhere may preserve the intended count in one place while failing to construct a coherent clause.
The IEC explains that Catalan possessive number agrees with the possessed noun. That source plural can count items without counting owners. Two people owning several objects require both relationships to be analysed; a plural possession cannot independently determine whether the owner group is dual.
A present-shaped target form can describe a future arrival
The Upper Sorbian documentation contrasts du domoj, I am going home, with přińdu domoj, I will come home. The perfective form has future meaning even though it is formally analysed with present morphology in the annotation account.
Catalan has its own distinction between present, future and past constructions. A source future should therefore not be judged incorrectly rendered merely because a target form resembles a present paradigm. The Upper Sorbian verb’s aspect and construction contribute to its interpretation.
Conversely, a source report of movement happening now should not be converted into a later arrival simply because the target lexical root concerns motion. Going, coming and reaching a completed event are related meanings, but they do not necessarily describe the same stage or direction.
The same documentation gives póńdu domoj for I will go home and notes that some imperfective verbs form genuine future expressions through prefixes. There is consequently no universal instruction to select any prefixed target form whenever Catalan uses a future. The lexical verb and the source event relation both matter.
A reflexive-looking form can belong to the verb’s lexical construction
Upper Sorbian UD illustrates hodźić so, to fit, as inherently reflexive: the construction requires the clitic rather than necessarily describing a person acting on themselves. It separately recognises self-directed, reciprocal and passive-related uses of reflexive forms.
A Catalan source with a pronominal verb must therefore be interpreted through its meaning before choosing an Upper Sorbian reflexive construction. A short source pronoun and a short target clitic do not independently establish matching participant relationships.
If the source discusses two people acting on each other, retain reciprocity as well as the appropriate number. If it describes an object fitting a purpose, do not invent two participants merely because the target contains so. This pair requires tracking grammatical number, temporal viewpoint and lexical reflexivity separately: each can introduce target morphology whose function differs from what a Catalan reader initially expects.
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