Lower Sorbian to Dogri: a pair must survive the move to singular and plural forms
Source number can be more specific than the target paradigm
The DOBES project describes an active Lower Sorbian dual category. Sawhney’s Dogri account describes a singular–plural number distinction instead. A Lower Sorbian pair can therefore carry information that does not have a dedicated matching Dogri number category.
For an original source message about two workers arriving, the exact pair should remain identifiable in Dogri. Translating a dual merely as a general plural can turn two workers into an unspecified group. Where the count is important, the target needs wording that preserves two rather than expecting ordinary plural agreement to do that job alone.
This is not a reason to insert a count beside every noun indiscriminately. If the source distinguishes two workers from the equipment they bring, the pair belongs to the workers. It does not establish that there are two tools, two vehicles or two destinations. Follow the scope of the source number distinction.
A genitive ending can preserve both relation and count
Igartua’s Lower Sorbian study contrasts grod-owu, genitive dual of castles, with grod-ow, genitive plural. The distinction provides a concrete example of source number remaining meaningful inside a relationship expression. It should not be discarded simply because the noun is not a subject in its basic form.
Dogri genitive da, de and di agree with the possessed head in Sawhney’s description. Their form does not provide the same genitive-dual contrast. Before translating an original description of the entrances of two castles, distinguish the two castles from whatever number of entrances the sentence actually specifies.
The Dogri target must preserve the relationship between the entrances and those two buildings while using its own genitive agreement. Choosing a source-looking plural ending or a familiar Dogri de does not by itself retain the exact pair. Number and the grammatical connection need separate interpretation.
Pronoun shape can leave count less visible
Sawhney notes that Dogri proximal e and distal o do not distinguish singular and plural in their nominative forms, while oblique forms distinguish number. A short target pronoun after a source dual may consequently make the pair less obvious than the Lower Sorbian original does.
For an original report meaning the two visitors arrived and they need a room, trace the same pair across both clauses. The Dogri pronoun’s form alone may not reassure a reader that only those two visitors are meant. The preceding explicit reference can provide the needed link without inventing a new group.
The useful procedure in this direction is to keep a small participant count attached to its actual referent. Lower Sorbian morphology can state a pair inside a noun or related form; Dogri may distribute that information between a count expression, ordinary plural agreement and discourse reference. The translation is accurate when the same two people or things remain recoverable, even though no target ending duplicates the source dual paradigm.
Language references