Dogri to Lithuanian: distinguish self-reference from an ordinary genitive
A source possessive ending does not select savo by gender
Dogri genitive marking agrees with the head noun’s gender, number and case, according to Sawhney. Lithuanian savo, described in the Ambrazas grammar, instead identifies possession related to the subject regardless of that subject’s person or number. A translator must therefore establish whether the owner is the subject before selecting the reflexive possessive. A Dogri agreeing ending cannot make that decision by itself.
In an original scenario where a speaker brings their own notebook, the owner and actor coincide. In a report that the speaker brings another person’s notebook, they do not. The Lithuanian translation needs to retain that relation even if the Dogri head noun and its agreeing genitive form have the same grammatical gender in both sentences.
The same reflexive possessive can accompany different persons
The Lithuanian grammar illustrates savo in clauses with I, you, he/she, we and they. Its contribution is the relation to the clause subject, not a permanently third-person owner. Thus a Dogri first-person self-reference need not use the same Lithuanian possessive form as a first-person ownership statement whose owner is independent of the local subject.
For example, compare a Dogri instruction for a person to bring their own document with a statement asking that person to bring the speaker’s document. Both involve the addressee as carrier, but the documents have different owners. Treating every source expression connected to the speaker as a reflexive would blur that distinction. Establish who acts and whose object is involved before deciding whether the target should relate the possession to its subject.
Possessive and nonpossessive genitives are not interchangeable
The grammar distinguishes mano, tavo and savo as possessive genitive forms from manęs, tavęs and savęs in other functions. A target form used for my book is therefore not necessarily the form required when a verb takes a personal genitive object. Dogri postpositions and oblique forms express their own relationships; their broad genitive or self-reference labels cannot be copied as Lithuanian word choices.
This is useful when a Dogri account moves from waiting for the speaker to discussing the speaker’s letter. The speaker remains the same person, but being waited for and owning a letter are different dependencies. Choosing one Lithuanian genitive form for both solely because an English bridge translation uses me or my would disregard the distinction documented in the target grammar.
Reflexive number does not count the participants
The Lithuanian reflexive pronoun has no separate plural paradigm in the cited account, while its case forms can serve singular and plural meanings. A Dogri statement about several people buying things for themselves must still retain the group, even though the target reflexive form need not visibly pluralize. Read the subject and reflexive relation together. The number of actors, the owner relationship and the grammatical case each contribute different information; no single ending can safely stand in for all three.
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