Dogri to Latvian: a number’s value can stay fixed while its grammatical pattern changes
An oblique numeral still denotes the same quantity
Sawhney’s Dogri morphology paper illustrates ikk-e in a phrase involving one road and explains cardinal-numeral inflection when the modified noun is oblique. The ending does not turn one into a different number; it belongs to the grammatical construction around that quantity.
Kalnača and Lokmane’s Latvian Grammar distinguishes numerals that inflect from others that do not. Its paradigm gives trīs gadi and triju gadu as forms involving three years. A changed numeral shape can therefore preserve the same quantity in Latvian as well, but its forms must be selected through the target paradigm.
For a Dogri text describing a number of years, establish the value before deciding the Latvian ending. Do not interpret an inflected source numeral as extra numerical content. Conversely, recognizing the right value does not make an arbitrary target case form appropriate: the number still belongs to a noun phrase with a role in the sentence.
Do not extend one declension pattern to every cardinal number
The Latvian grammar lists eleven through nineteen among indeclinable cardinals, including vienpadsmit and divpadsmit. It also documents parallel declinable and indeclinable variants for some other numerals. The category numeral therefore does not prescribe one uniform set of endings.
This matters when a Dogri description changes from three items to twelve items. A translator cannot simply keep the Latvian construction learned for the smaller number and replace its stem with the word for twelve. The numerical value and the numeral’s inflectional behavior are separate parts of the target choice.
The grammar describes traditional genitive noun use after certain cardinals, including the teens, while also documenting competing nominative use in modern texts. That variation should not be reduced to a rule that a noun after any number always carries one fixed case.
For an inventory or schedule translated from Dogri, preserve the exact count and identify the actual Latvian numeral class. An unchanged target number word can be correct in an indeclinable pattern; it is not automatically a sign that the source’s grammatical relationship has been ignored.
Rank and quantity need different constructions
Sawhney’s Dogri ordinal examples show agreement with gender and number, including a phrase meaning first rain. Latvian ordinals likewise display agreement, and the grammar illustrates different forms for fourth year and fourth grade. Those similarities do not make cardinal and ordinal uses interchangeable.
A Dogri passage describing four meetings gives a quantity; a passage describing the fourth meeting gives a place in a sequence. The same numerical base can underlie both meanings, but the reader receives different information. Substituting a familiar cardinal for an ordinal would change the event being identified.
The target noun’s grammatical gender must also be established independently of its Dogri equivalent. A source feminine ordinal ending tells the translator about the Dogri phrase, not necessarily about the Latvian noun selected to express it.
Read a numbered source phrase for its value, its counting or ranking function and its role in the complete sentence. Latvian can preserve those meanings through a changed ending, an invariant cardinal or an agreeing ordinal. What matters is choosing the documented pattern for that particular numeral, rather than making every target number visually imitate the source ending.
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