Czech to Lower Sorbian: exactly two is more than an ordinary plural
Czech dual remnants are not a complete dual system
The Czech UD account limits its surviving dual morphology to instrumental forms of a small set of nouns and agreeing words. Ordinary Czech number distinctions are principally singular and plural. The Lower Sorbian DOBES documentation, by contrast, identifies an actively used dual category.
A Czech sentence about two participants should therefore not be translated by assuming that its source plural is the final target number choice. Exactly two can require a Lower Sorbian dual construction. The distinction concerns the number of people or things referred to, not the age of the text or whether the source happens to contain one of Czech’s inherited dual remnants.
We can refer to a pair or to a larger group
An original Czech message saying that we will arrive after lunch may concern the writer and one companion, or the writer and several companions. The isolated source plural does not supply that difference. A preceding sentence naming exactly two travellers can be decisive.
If the Lower Sorbian target uses a dual for the first situation, it should not be automatically changed to plural merely because Czech uses an ordinary plural form. Conversely, choosing dual when three people travel would reduce the party. Resolve whether we includes precisely two people before selecting target agreement. The distinction can affect meeting arrangements even when no separate numeral appears in the short source reply.
Two people performing an action are different from two objects
The dual category should not be treated as a command to make every target word dual whenever the source mentions two. The participants and objects occupy separate grammatical relationships. A pair of workers carrying one parcel differs from one worker carrying two parcels.
Czech case and agreement help identify which phrase denotes the actor and which denotes the object, even where source word order varies. Preserve that role information before evaluating Lower Sorbian number. A translation that retains the numeral two but attaches its interpretation to the wrong phrase can leave the parcel count correct-looking while changing how many workers are expected. The target must preserve both the exact count and the entity being counted.
A movement construction can introduce another nonmatching verb form
DOBES also identifies the Lower Sorbian supine as a special nonfinite form normally used after verbs of movement. Czech UD describes infinitives and finite verbs but does not present a corresponding productive supine category in its modern verb inventory.
For an original Czech arrangement about going somewhere to work, recognize the motion event and the intended activity separately. An unfamiliar Lower Sorbian form after the movement verb need not indicate an incorrect tense or a second completed action. Its construction may express the purpose of the movement. If two workers are going to perform the activity, number and the movement complement require independent decisions: dual reference identifies the pair, while the nonfinite construction organizes what they are going to do.
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