Lower Sorbian to Bashkir: a relation word may follow its complement, but the pronoun still needs its own form
The source can place dla on either side in some expressions
Lower Sorbian orthographic rules discuss dla both before and after certain personal-pronoun expressions, illustrating mje dla and tebje dla. They also specify pronouns with which dla must precede, including the reflexive expression dla sebje. A translator must therefore recognize the relationship even when the visible order differs. The two arrangements are not evidence for two unrelated dictionary meanings.
Bashkir offers a different starting organization in Poppe’s manual: a postposition follows the noun or pronoun phrase that it relates to the sentence. A Lower Sorbian source with an initial relation word can consequently require the relevant information to move after its target complement. That movement should follow the chosen Bashkir construction, not an assumption that every source preposition has an equally placed target equivalent.
A pronoun is not treated exactly like an ordinary noun
Poppe distinguishes postpositions following basic-form nouns from their behavior after personal pronouns. In the latter environment, the manual requires genitive pronoun forms in the patterns described. Its attested expression meaning with me uses минең менән. The pronoun does not remain in the form used simply to identify the speaker as a subject.
This is useful when a Lower Sorbian message alternates between a named companion and a pronoun referring back to that companion. Even if the target uses the same relation word, the complement’s morphology may differ. Copying the dictionary form of a personal pronoun into a construction learned with an ordinary noun can lose the target distinction.
The source case is a clue to meaning, not a suffix prescription for Bashkir. Lower Sorbian mje and tebje identify participants within their own paradigm. Recover the first- or second-person reference, decide the intended relationship, then choose the target pronoun form required by the Bashkir postposition.
A cause and a companion are different relationships
Poppe illustrates өсөн with a pronoun in a phrase glossed for me or because of me, while менән supplies the with relationship in the companion example. Thus the presence of a person after a source relation word does not settle whether the target should describe accompaniment, benefit or cause.
For a Lower Sorbian explanation of why an event occurred, a companion construction would create a different account: someone being the reason for a journey is not necessarily someone accompanying the traveller. Conversely, interpreting a companion as a cause adds an explanation the source may never make. These alternatives need semantic resolution before the postposition is selected.
Referring back to the actor requires another check
Stone describes Lower Sorbian reflexive forms, including sebje and se, whose interpretation normally links to the clause’s subject. The orthographic example dla sebje therefore cannot be translated as a general third-person reference without checking its antecedent. A relation directed towards oneself differs from one directed towards another previously mentioned person.
Poppe’s Bashkir discussion separately describes a self expression carrying a possessive suffix associated with its person. This provides a reason to retain the reflexive relationship through the target phrase rather than replace it with an unmarked he or she expression. The exact source actor, the relation’s meaning and the postposition’s complement requirements must be resolved together; matching only the source word order will not preserve all three.
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