Lower Sorbian to Danish: a motion-related verb form should not become a future by accident
The source can mark the purpose of going
The DOBES Lower Sorbian overview identifies a supine, a special nonfinite verb form typically used after verbs of movement. Its presence gives a translator a reason to examine the relationship between the motion and the following action. The two parts should not be treated automatically as unrelated events or as one generic future expression.
For an original Lower Sorbian account of going to sleep, distinguish actually moving somewhere for that purpose from merely announcing that sleep will happen later. The source motion predicate and its nonfinite complement together determine the intended relationship. A Danish translation should preserve that relationship rather than select its construction solely from an English paraphrase with going to.
The same issue arises in a plan to go and work at another location. The destination and purpose can matter to the message. Dropping the movement because the following activity seems more informative can turn a travel arrangement into a simple statement about future work.
Danish modal complements are another construction
The Danish UD reference describes modal and aspectual verbs combining with a bare infinitive, including måtte and kunne. It separately identifies at as an infinitive marker. A Danish infinitive’s surface appearance therefore depends on its target construction; a special Lower Sorbian nonfinite form cannot select one spelling pattern in every environment.
An original source contrast between going somewhere to work and being able to work concerns different claims. The first includes movement and purpose; the second concerns ability. A target that substitutes a familiar modal-plus-infinitive pattern for the source motion construction can preserve work while losing the journey.
Conversely, the translator should not introduce a journey into an ability statement simply because a nonfinite action appears. Identify which source verb governs the action before interpreting the target infinitive. The source supine is evidence about a particular grammatical relationship, not an instruction to translate every following activity with a movement verb.
An actor can change position without changing identity
The Danish overview notes the subject’s position after the finite verb in verb-initial main clauses. A source question about who is going somewhere can therefore require a target order unlike that of a simple statement. That reordering does not turn the person into the destination or the purpose of travel.
For an original Lower Sorbian question about whether two colleagues are going to help, preserve the colleagues, the movement and the helping purpose separately. DOBES also notes Lower Sorbian dual reference, so the pair may be grammatical information in the source rather than a separately repeated numeral. Danish wording must still retain that exact count where it matters.
This direction combines a source nonfinite distinction with target construction choices. Determine whether the message actually asserts motion, what the following action contributes, and who is expected to perform it. Then read the Danish finite verb, subject and infinitive together. A fluent future-looking target is inaccurate if the Lower Sorbian source arranged a journey for a specific purpose.
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