Dogri to Setswana: translate the manner of an action separately from the actor’s agreement
A changing Dogri adverb can still describe the same manner
Sawhney illustrates a Dogri manner expression whose ending changes with the person described: t̪im-ɑ with Ram and t̪im-i with Rani in examples about walking slowly. The agreement differs, but the basic manner remains slow. When translating into Setswana, do not look for two different lexical meanings merely because the source adverb changes shape.
The Peace Corps Setswana grammar illustrates ka bonya for slowly. Its construction uses ka with an adverbial noun. That is a different way to build the manner expression from the inflected Dogri example. Preserving the actor does not require inventing a corresponding masculine–feminine alternation on this target phrase.
One source manner word can become a target construction
The Setswana manual distinguishes adverbs that stand alone from instrumental adverbs formed with ka. It illustrates sentle for well as well as ka bonya. A Dogri adverb therefore does not have to become exactly one separate target word. Nor does an appropriate two-word rendering indicate that the translation has added an extra action or participant.
This matters in a practical instruction about speaking slowly. If the Dogri manner form contains agreement associated with its actor, the translation must preserve slow speaking without treating the agreement ending as a separate description of that person. Rebuilding the target manner construction expresses how the speech occurs; the clause’s participant grammar identifies who speaks. Those functions should not be collapsed.
The manual places the illustrated manner expressions towards the sentence end. Dogri’s ordinary verb-final organization, described by Sawhney, gives a different starting arrangement. Moving the manner material when rebuilding the Setswana predicate is therefore not evidence that the translator has made it less important. Its relationship to the action matters more than matching its distance from the start of the source.
Speaking well is not simply being a good person
Dogri has declinable adjectives as well as the inflecting manner class. Seeing a similar source ending does not establish that a word describes a noun. Determine whether the phrase evaluates the actor or the action: a person described as good and an act of speaking described as good are different propositions.
Setswana’s manual illustrates a sentence about a girl speaking English well. In that construction, sentle qualifies the speaking. A translation of a Dogri statement about skill must retain that relationship rather than leave the target adjective to describe the girl generally. Conversely, a source character description should not be narrowed to language performance merely because a familiar target example concerns speaking.
Better introduces another relation
The manual also illustrates mo go botoka in its discussion of speaking better. This concerns comparison rather than merely the positive evaluation well. A Dogri plural or feminine manner ending is not itself comparative information; adding a comparative target construction would strengthen the source claim.
If the Dogri source genuinely compares two performances, identify which performance receives the evaluation and whether a standard is explicitly supplied. The Setswana manual separates examples with an expressed comparison standard from those without one. That distinction, together with the source’s adjective-versus-adverb function, helps preserve the claim: who acts, how they act and whether that manner is being compared are three separate questions.
Language references