German to Sesotho sa Leboa: keep track of the same person
Gender can identify somebody in German but not in noun-class agreement
A German narrative may introduce a man and a woman, then distinguish them with er and sie. Those pronouns are not interchangeable with agreement forms in Sesotho sa Leboa. Mojapelo’s study of definiteness in Northern Sotho explains that the two human nouns in such a coordinated introduction share an agreement class. Agreement alone does not distinguish their sex. The translation may therefore need to repeat the relevant human noun where German can use a short pronoun without confusion.
Take the original German scenario Ein Mann und eine Frau warten. Sie ruft an. Here the singular verb makes the second sentence a statement about the woman, rather than about both people. Replacing the German reference with an undifferentiated human agreement form could leave the caller unclear. The useful information is not merely that a human telephones: it is which member of the previously introduced pair does so. That distinction should survive even if the target sentence repeats a noun that German omits.
Do not manufacture a this for every German definite article
German articles commonly distinguish an introduction with ein or eine from a subsequent reference with der or die. Sesotho sa Leboa has no article whose sole job is the same definite-versus-indefinite contrast. Mojapelo examines how context identifies a referent without such an article. Thus the absence of a visible counterpart to der does not by itself mean that a translation has turned an already identified person into an unknown new one.
Equally, mechanically inserting a demonstrative for each German article can add an emphasis or pointing relation that the source did not intend. A report about a woman already introduced is not necessarily pointing at this woman in the immediate environment. The stronger reason to make the noun explicit is the competing antecedent, not the existence of the German definite article. Those are different problems and need not receive the same solution.
A change from the group to one member must remain visible
The thesis specifically distinguishes ordinary continued reference from picking out one part of a coordinated antecedent. It gives an explicit noun as a way to select one member when shared agreement would be insufficient. This is directly relevant to German texts alternating between sie with a plural verb and sie with a singular verb: number on the German verb can help establish whether an action belongs to the group or to one female participant.
For example, a German account can first say that two people arrived together and then that she returned alone. The translation must preserve the narrowing from two arrivals to one return. Naming the relevant participant in Sesotho sa Leboa may be more faithful than copying German’s degree of abbreviation. After that participant becomes the sole continuing topic, a different balance between explicit nouns and agreement may become possible. Follow the changing referent through the episode rather than imposing a rule that every German pronoun must always be expanded.
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