Czech to Welsh: the owner can determine the noun’s first consonant
His and her can begin with the same possessive word
The Welsh Academy Dictionary’s morphology explains ei for both his and her, with different following mutations. Its ei ben means his head, while ei phen means her head. The altered first consonant helps identify a different owner; it does not name a different body part.
A Czech reader accustomed to distinguishing possessive forms should not judge ei alone as proof that the translation has lost the owner’s gender. Read the following noun as part of the construction. Conversely, changing a mutated noun back to its dictionary spelling can remove precisely the information that distinguishes the intended possession pattern.
Czech svůj does not independently identify a male or female owner
The Czech Academy describes svůj as relating possession to the subject or actor. Its inflected form belongs to the possessed noun phrase. A feminine-looking form does not by itself establish that the owner is female.
Imagine an original Czech account of a man describing an injury to his own hand and a woman describing the same kind of injury. The reflexive possessive relationship can be expressed through forms agreeing with the same possessed noun. For Welsh, recover the actual owner from the subject and context rather than select the mutation from the Czech possessed noun’s gender. The source agreement and target owner distinction answer different grammatical questions.
A changed beginning is not a Czech-style case ending
Welsh mutation also occurs in environments unrelated to owner gender. The dictionary illustrates cath becoming y gath after the article in the relevant feminine singular construction. It separately lists prepositions that trigger soft mutation, subject to particular exceptions.
Czech case endings distinguish grammatical relationships across noun phrases, but they do not provide a one-to-one key to Welsh initial mutations. A Czech location expression and a possession expression may both acquire visibly changed target nouns for different reasons. Establish the governing Welsh construction before deciding that the changed consonant corresponds to a source case or identifies another person. Shared appearance does not make the triggers interchangeable.
Not every noun will make the contrast equally visible
The Welsh mutation table shows that the aspirate pattern associated with her changes p, t, and c, while some other initials remain unchanged. Its notes also distinguish standard patterns from particular northern spoken variants. The guide is not a rule to alter every noun after every ei.
A Czech translator checking two items belonging to the same woman may therefore see an obvious initial change in one Welsh noun but none in another. That unevenness does not automatically mean inconsistent ownership. Likewise, two similar-looking target phrases may need their surrounding context to establish the owner. Preserve the Czech distinction between the actor’s own property and another person’s property, then evaluate each Welsh noun against its actual mutation environment rather than demanding the same visible change on every item.
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