Lower Sorbian to Bosnian: no money, an absent person and a different noun form
A changed noun form can express absence without adding an owner
A Lower Sorbian travel message can explain that money or fuel is unavailable. In Bosnian, the noun accompanying that absence statement may look different from its dictionary form. That change does not automatically introduce a meaning such as somebody’s money or somebody’s fuel.
Alexander and Elias-Bursać’s textbook teaches nema as an unchanging expression of absence requiring the genitive. Its Bosnian dialogue includes “Nema novca” and “nema benzina”. The money and fuel remain the things unavailable; the case form is part of how that absence is expressed.
For a travel update, preserve the particular obstacle. Not having money for a journey differs from having a vehicle with no fuel. A translation retaining a general negative but exchanging those objects would leave the recipient responding to the wrong problem.
An unavailable thing and an unwilling person are different claims
The same lesson separately explains negative forms of wanting. A statement about what someone does not want is not equivalent to an impersonal statement that something is absent. This distinction is especially useful in a Lower Sorbian exchange where a proposed trip is being reconsidered.
A person may want to travel while lacking fuel. Another may have everything needed but decline the journey. Translating the first situation as unwillingness changes the person’s attitude; translating the second as lack of resources invents an obstacle.
Keep the reason and the decision connected without merging them. If the source says the car cannot be taken because fuel is unavailable, that does not necessarily cancel the whole outing. The textbook dialogue itself moves from a vehicle problem to travelling on foot, illustrating why a local obstacle need not mean abandonment of the destination.
Likewise, do not turn an absent person into a refusal to participate. Someone not currently present may still intend to attend later. A target absence construction reports availability or presence, while the surrounding message must establish plans and willingness.
Source order is not a reason to detach the negative from its noun
Pankau documents colloquial Lower Sorbian constructions in which modifiers appear separately from the noun or adjective with which they are interpreted. His study explicitly distinguishes this usage from the standardized written variety. The translation must recover the complete relationship rather than treating adjacent words as the only possible partners.
In a short logistical message, identify exactly what the source denies before choosing the Bosnian construction. A quantity, a resource, a person’s presence and a willingness to act are separate possibilities. Their translations may use different grammar even when the English summary of each contains not or no.
The textbook also distinguishes existential ima from nema, including case differences depending on what kind of presence or amount is expressed. Do not repair an unfamiliar target noun ending merely to make an affirmative and negative pair look identical.
Read the message as a practical response: what is available, what is missing, and what can still happen? That approach preserves a Lower Sorbian explanation of circumstances while allowing Bosnian case and negative constructions to identify the same constraint. It avoids turning a grammatical noun form into ownership or a shortage into an invented refusal.
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