Divehi to Urdu: identify the comparison before translating its case marker
The Divehi comparison marker does not decide greater or smaller
Gnanadesikan describes Divehi vure as introducing a comparison standard with dative marking. Crucially, it does not invariably mean more than by itself. The accompanying property or quantity determines the direction: the grammar contrasts a larger-house comparison with an expression for an amount that is smaller. Urdu must preserve that direction instead of inserting a word for more wherever vure appears.
The source case ending also does not make the comparison standard a recipient. In a size comparison, the house provides a benchmark; nobody is giving something to it. Treating every Divehi dative as a target equivalent of to would lose the comparison entirely. Identify which entity is measured and which supplies the standard before choosing the Urdu construction.
This distinction is especially useful in messages about amounts. A statement below a given amount should remain below it, even when the same source postposition occurs in statements exceeding another threshold. The negative or positive direction comes from the whole comparative expression, not from replacing vure with a fixed isolated English gloss.
Urdu se needs the surrounding predicate to reveal its role
Ghulam Raza’s primary Urdu grammar analysis demonstrates that se has several functions. Its examples include comparison, an instrument, a source of movement and a participant in conversation. Thus a se phrase is not automatically a source location or a tool. Its interpretation belongs to the construction in which it appears.
Raza gives nıda Ali=se chot.i hE, meaning that Nida is younger than Ali. Ali supplies the comparison standard; he is neither an instrument nor the starting point of travel. This is a useful target model for a Divehi age comparison because it keeps the two people’s roles distinct without pretending that source dative and target se have one identical meaning everywhere.
The same analysis illustrates coming from Multan with se. A Divehi travel statement and a Divehi comparison can therefore produce target phrases containing the same postposition while expressing quite different relationships. A translation should be evaluated against the actual age, size, movement or interaction claim rather than against the isolated postposition.
Do not add the same degree word to every target category
Bhatia, Iyer and Kaur investigate Hindi-Urdu comparison with zyaadaa. Their paper distinguishes adjectival comparison, where that word can be absent, from the nominal, verbal and adverbial comparative patterns they discuss, where it is required. These observations concern constructions, not an instruction to delete every apparently optional word.
Their attested example bill nina-se lamb-aa hE compares Bill’s height with Nina’s without an overt zyaadaa. A Divehi adjective that lacks comparative inflection can therefore correspond to a target comparison without a separate visible equivalent of English more. The absence of such a word does not alone turn the sentence into a simple description.
A quantity comparison requires a different assessment from that height example. When the Divehi source contrasts amounts or repeated actions, preserve what is being measured rather than copying the shortest adjective pattern. The target’s degree expression must fit that category and the intended greater-or-smaller relation, while leaving the comparison standard attached to the correct participant.
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