German to Canadian French: son does not tell you whether the owner is male
German ownership contains two different agreement layers
German sein and ihr can distinguish a male or neuter possessor from a female or plural possessor, while their endings also agree with the possessed noun. The German treebank documentation treats the owner’s gender and number separately from agreement with the item. A Canadian French translation needs to preserve who the owner is, but French possessive gender does not reproduce the German owner distinction in the same way.
The Office québécois de la langue française explains that son, sa, and ses agree with the thing referred to and can leave the possessor’s identity ambiguous. A German phrase meaning “her dog” can therefore contain French son without changing the owner into a man. The apparent masculine form concerns the French noun, not the owner’s sex.
A vowel can change the possessive form without changing the woman mentioned
OQLF further explains that son replaces sa before a feminine word beginning with a vowel or a silent h in the relevant contexts. Its example son histoire illustrates why the form cannot simply be read as a male-owner label. A German source about a woman’s story does not become a story belonging to a man when the French possessive takes that shape.
Compare the meanings “his answer” and “her answer.” German can distinguish those owners through the possessive root even when the noun and its grammatical gender stay the same. French may leave that owner contrast to surrounding reference. If the German message deliberately compares two people’s answers, the translation needs sufficient wording to maintain the comparison. Correct French agreement alone is not proof that the two owners remain distinguishable.
Plural things do not imply plural owners
The OQLF paradigm contrasts ses, associated with a singular third-person possessor and plural items, with leur or leurs, associated with plural third-person possessors. The s in ses therefore does not mean that several people own the items. A German statement about one woman’s two documents must not become a statement about a group’s documents because the translation contains plural agreement.
German ihr deserves particular attention because it can refer to her or their, and capitalized Ihr can belong to formal address. The German documentation distinguishes capitalized polite reference from ordinary third-person reference. In a business exchange, “your documents” addressed formally, “her documents,” and “their documents” establish different owners, even where related-looking German forms occur. The Canadian French result should preserve that person relationship through the appropriate possessive and surrounding sentence. A target son or sa answers a noun-agreement question; votre identifies an addressee relationship; leur identifies a different owner group. Resolve the German reference before evaluating the French ending. This prevents a superficially polished noun phrase from silently transferring responsibility for a document, answer, or account to somebody else.
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