German to Inuinnaqtun: getting dressed is different from already being dressed
A German reflexive word can belong to one target event word
German reflexive constructions can express an action directed toward its subject, or form part of a verb’s required grammatical pattern. The German treebank documentation distinguishes those functions. In a sentence about somebody dressing themselves, a translator needs to preserve the subject’s relationship to the clothing without assuming there must be a separate Inuinnaqtun word occupying the place of sich.
The Nunavut Arctic College dictionary records aannuraaqtuq for putting on one’s own clothes or dressing oneself. A single entry can therefore correspond to a German expression containing a verb and reflexive reference. The shorter target word count does not itself mean that the self-directed relationship has been lost. The meaning is carried by the whole target predicate.
The result of dressing does not describe the ongoing action
The dictionary separately records aannuraariiqtuq for being already dressed. This distinguishes a completed readiness condition from an instruction or report about putting clothes on. For a German household message, “He is getting dressed” and “He is already dressed” can answer different practical questions: the first suggests an activity is underway, while the second says the resulting state has been reached.
A translation that chooses an entry only because it contains a clothing-related root could collapse that distinction. Nor should a German adjective-like or participial description be converted into an action merely because the target dictionary gloss contains an English verb. A German statement about someone being ready in their clothes is not automatically an instruction for that person to start dressing again.
Undressing, unclothed condition, and ownership remain distinct
The same dictionary distinguishes an entry for undressing from aannuraangiqtuq, which includes being naked or having undressed among its glosses. These alternatives show why the complete German proposition matters. “She took off her coat” does not necessarily mean that she is unclothed, while a description of somebody having no clothes on is more specific than merely removing an outer garment.
German possessives also identify an owner, whereas sich identifies a subject-related participant in a reflexive construction. A source meaning “She puts on her own clothes” and one meaning “She puts clothes on the child” differ in who is dressed. The Inuinnaqtun result must keep that difference even if its dictionary entry is translated with a longer German phrase. The cited dictionary was prepared for local Inuinnaqtun teaching with elders and records its own spelling conventions; neighboring Inuktut resources should not be treated as interchangeable word lists. In this direction, identify whether the German sentence describes an action, an already achieved clothing state, or a change involving somebody else. That decision prevents the target’s compact event words from being mistaken for simple clothing nouns or from making a partly undressed person entirely unclothed.
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