Dogri to Tigrinya: possession may be expressed on the noun instead of a separate modifier
Do not require a separate target word for every Dogri possessive
Sawhney illustrates Dogri possession with a modifier preceding its noun and lists separate genitive pronoun forms. A reader may therefore expect a visible counterpart for the owner before the Tigrinya noun. Kifle’s Tigrinya grammar describes both independent possessive expressions and possession marked by a suffix on the noun itself. A shorter-looking target phrase can still include the owner.
For a Dogri phrase identifying someone’s book, first distinguish the owner reference from the possessed item. If the Tigrinya noun carries an appropriate possessor suffix, the ownership information has not disappeared merely because a separate equivalent of the Dogri modifier is absent. Counting target words would give the wrong diagnosis.
An independent possessive and a noun suffix are not freely cumulative
Kifle illustrates nat-u, a third-person masculine singular possessive form, in a phrase meaning his book. The same discussion gives a possessive suffix directly on the book noun as another way of expressing that relationship. It explicitly excludes combining the overt possessive pronoun with the possessor-marked noun in its illustrated construction.
This is a specific risk when translating a Dogri source through a dictionary: one entry may supply the separate possessive, while another supplies a noun form already containing the possessor. Putting both together can encode information twice in a construction the grammar rejects. The translation needs one suitable possessive organization, rather than a collection of individually relevant words.
That problem differs from preserving an adjective alongside the owner. A Dogri noun phrase may identify both whose item it is and what quality the item has. Removing an independent possessive because ownership is suffixed does not authorize removing an additional quality. Identify which source information is already represented inside the target word before shortening the phrase.
A masculine or feminine possessive form can concern the owner
Kifle’s paradigm contrasts nat-u and nat-a for a masculine versus feminine third-person singular possessor. Sawhney’s Dogri description includes masculine and feminine variants of third-person genitive forms in its discussion of agreement. The labels therefore must not be matched mechanically without establishing which participant each distinction concerns.
If a Dogri possessive form changes with the possessed noun, that does not establish the owner’s sex. The Tigrinya owner distinction must come from the source reference or surrounding meaning. A feminine item and a female owner are different facts, even when a grammatical description uses the same gender terminology for both.
A named owner offers another construction
Kifle also describes a genitive expression with nay and a named possessor. Its canonical modifier position is before the head noun; placing that possessive modifier after the noun is described as emphasized. Thus a named Dogri owner need not be replaced with a pronoun solely to fit the suffix pattern.
This also makes word order consequential. Dogri’s preceding possessive modifier may happen to resemble the canonical Tigrinya arrangement, but a decision to move it after the noun can add emphasis in the construction Kifle describes. Preserve whether the source merely identifies the owner or gives that owner particular prominence. Similar-looking placement is helpful only after the target possessive construction has been identified.
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