Estonian to Slovenian: when two people need more than a plural
Estonian meie does not count the group for you
EKSS defines Estonian meie as referring ordinarily to a group of at least two that includes the speaker. It can include the addressee or somebody else. Slovenian translation therefore needs more than a word-for-word equivalent of “we”: an invitation from two friends and an announcement from a larger team can start with the same Estonian pronoun while requiring different number agreement in the target.
The dictionary’s example Me kahekesi jäime teistest maha makes the two-person group explicit. That extra information should not disappear when the sentence is recast. Conversely, its examples also include larger groups and uses of “we” for an author alone or in addressing a patient. These special uses make literal head-counting unreliable. Decide who the Estonian speaker actually includes before choosing a Slovenian dual merely because the text contains meie.
Dual agreement can identify a two-person travelling group
Marc Greenberg’s Slovenian grammar illustrates Midva z Miranom greva v Lendavo: the speaker and Miran are going to Lendava. The phrase naming Miran does not add a third participant to an already counted pair. This is particularly helpful for Estonian expressions such as Meie Mardiga, documented in EKSS, where the companion phrase helps identify who “we” consists of.
Greenberg also explains that subjects quantified by two take dual agreement, giving a two-dog example. Thus an Estonian description with an explicit quantity of two can influence the Slovenian verb as well as the noun phrase. Checking only that the numeral survived is insufficient. Keep the group fixed through the clause: a two-person subject should not quietly become an unrestricted larger group in the predicate. The grammar’s discussion of first-person reference also shows that dual number does not independently tell the reader whether the addressee belongs to that pair; naming the companion can resolve that separate question.
Ordinary pairs of body parts behave differently
Marušič and Žaucer describe an important qualification: Slovenian nouns for things normally occurring in pairs often use the plural for the ordinary pair. Their example Noge me bolijo refers to the speaker’s legs hurting. An Estonian reader should not change that plural to a dual simply because a person normally has two legs. The expected pair can be treated as a conventional unit in this construction.
The researchers contrast this with explicit “both” wording, illustrated by Obe nogi me bolita. Here the dual becomes appropriate. For Estonian input, the difference between merely referring to one’s legs and specifically saying both legs can therefore affect several words in Slovenian. The paper also records variation with some other pair nouns, including parents, so this is not an exceptionless instruction that every natural pair must always be plural. Identify whether the source highlights two independent items, explicitly quantifies both, or refers to an ordinary paired set before interpreting the target agreement.
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