Dogri to Telugu: near and far pronouns still need person and respect decisions
Dogri e and o do not supply every target distinction
Sawhney’s Dogri paradigm distinguishes proximal e and distal o, while noting that their nominative forms do not distinguish singular from plural. The oblique paradigm supplies number distinctions elsewhere. A short Dogri subject reference can therefore need its surrounding phrase or discourse to establish the actual number of people.
Vemuri’s Telugu pronoun lesson organizes third-person forms by proximity, gender-related distinctions and respectful treatment. Translating a nearby or distant Dogri reference is consequently not just a choice between two equivalent distance labels. The target pronoun may also commit to which kind of referent is meant and how that person is treated.
For an original Dogri account of somebody standing nearby, determine whether the source means one visitor or several. A familiar Telugu singular chosen only from the source’s proximal meaning could lose a plural reference. A plural-looking Telugu choice, on the other hand, may be respectful reference to one person rather than an accurate count of several.
Respect can matter when referring to somebody else
The Telugu lesson lists aayana as respectful reference to a man and aavida as respectful reference to a woman; it also discusses vaaru in respectful singular and plural contexts. These choices concern the person referred to, not only the person receiving the message.
Dogri tuss gives evidence about respectful second-person address, but that does not automatically settle Telugu third-person reference. An original Dogri message to a friend about a respected teacher has two relationships: familiarity with the friend and respect toward the teacher. Selecting a casual target third-person form merely because the recipient is a friend would merge those relationships.
Likewise, the Dogri noun or verb’s feminine agreement should not be used indiscriminately to identify the teacher. In Sawhney’s past transfer example, feminine verbal agreement is associated with the book while the giver is male. Establish the person referred to independently of an ending that may belong to an object-related agreement pattern.
A recipient needs the appropriate target form too
Vemuri distinguishes Telugu subject pronouns from object and possessive forms. The lesson’s transfer examples show recipient expressions in the construction rather than treating the nominative pronoun as unchanged in every role. Once a referent is identified, its role in the message still matters.
An original Dogri sentence can name a nearby teacher as the recipient of a book. Dogri gi after the person supplies evidence about that role. The Telugu result needs both the intended respectful reference and the correct recipient construction; preserving only proximity would not preserve the transfer relationship.
For this pair, read distance, count, social treatment and grammatical role as separate layers. Dogri can leave number unexpressed in a particular nominative form while marking it differently in an oblique form. Telugu may use a respectful plural-looking form for one person. Neither surface pattern can be interpreted safely through a rule that every plural form counts people or every nearby pronoun has only one target equivalent.
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