Lower Sorbian to Bangla: reconnect a separated question word with what it counts
The quantity question and its noun can be separated in the source
A Lower Sorbian question can place the expression asking how many apart from the noun being counted. When translating into Bangla, identify that connection before arranging the target noun phrase. Otherwise a question about an amount may become a general question about possession or a different event.
Pankau’s study documents colloquial Lower Sorbian from speaker consultation and recorded material. One corpus example asks how many raspberries the speaker had the previous year, with the quantity expression separated from the raspberry noun. The study calls this a type of left branch extraction.
For a harvest message, the practical task is to preserve both parts of the enquiry: the item being counted and the period concerned. A translation asking whether the speaker had raspberries is weaker than asking how many. A question about this year instead of last year changes the inventory being discussed.
Bangla noun phrases have their own internal ordering
Thompson’s Bangla grammar describes a relatively stable sequence of possessive, deictic, quantity and descriptive modifiers before the noun, with classifier placement depending on the construction. This target pattern should not be reconstructed by copying every gap or separated element in the Lower Sorbian source.
Suppose a message asks about the speaker’s small collection rather than all produce in the household. Ownership, amount and descriptive restriction each contribute to identifying the collection. Keeping their individual dictionary meanings while attaching them to the wrong noun could produce a different count.
The Bangla grammar’s contrast “amar ei chele” versus “ei amar chele” shows why order can matter beyond style: one is a phrase identifying this son of mine, while the other states that this is my son. Moving a deictic before a possessive can therefore change the construction, not merely emphasize the same phrase.
For Lower Sorbian introductions and stock questions alike, decide whether a group of words identifies an entity inside a larger sentence or makes an identification statement on its own. A translation should not turn a noun phrase into an unrelated sentence simply because the source allowed material to appear apart.
Reconnecting the phrase must not erase the question’s purpose
The colloquial source example is evidence for a documented construction, not a claim that every written Lower Sorbian sentence should use it. Pankau explicitly distinguishes his colloquial data from the standardized written variety. Interpret the actual message rather than imposing the example’s order on all source texts.
Likewise, the Bangla ordering description is not a licence to ignore the role of the phrase in its sentence. A question about the quantity received differs from a question about the quantity remaining, even if both contain the same owner and item.
For a household harvest exchange, trace the count through the whole statement: which produce, belonging to whom, from which season, and received or retained. A separated source question word still belongs to one of those relationships.
The target can gather the relevant material into its own construction while keeping that relationship intact. This is more reliable than translating the first question expression immediately and deciding what it referred to only after reaching the end of the Lower Sorbian sentence.
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