Lower Sorbian to Irish: a preposition can contain the person that Lower Sorbian writes separately
A short Irish form can contain two pieces of source information
Stone’s Lower Sorbian pronoun paradigm illustrates prepositions with separate pronoun forms, including z nama for a first-person dual reference. Irish grammar presents another organization: Teanglann lists prepositional forms such as agam and againn under ag. A target word may therefore combine a relation with a personal reference that appears across separate words in the source.
The distinction matters when checking whether a translation has omitted us or me. A standalone Irish personal pronoun need not appear beside every preposition for the person to be represented. Read the relevant prepositional form before adding another pronoun merely to match the Lower Sorbian word count.
Do not preserve a source case by choosing the wrong relation
The Irish grammar database gives different first-person singular forms for ag and ar: agam versus orm. These do not differ merely in spelling or grammatical case within one interchangeable series. They belong to different prepositions. A Lower Sorbian oblique pronoun must therefore be interpreted together with the relation governing it.
A phrase that places a burden on someone, identifies something in someone’s possession or locates an object near someone can involve the same person while expressing different relationships. Selecting whichever Irish form looks most like the familiar pronoun is insufficient. Determine the source relation first, then use the corresponding Irish prepositional paradigm.
This also prevents a mistaken correction based on a shared English gloss. Lower Sorbian case and preposition combinations do not guarantee that an Irish construction uses the preposition usually translated with the same short English word. The complete target expression, not an isolated gloss, establishes its meaning.
A possession statement can identify the possessor through ag
Ó Dónaill’s dictionary documents possession uses of ag, including Tá agam, I have it. It also illustrates keeping a key with someone and expressions identifying someone’s house or son. Thus a Lower Sorbian statement using a have verb can require an Irish construction organized around a different relation.
The participant described as possessor in the Lower Sorbian source must remain identifiable even when the Irish wording does not give that person the same visible subject form. For example, a statement about what the speaker has differs from one about what a third person has. The choice between agam and a third-person form contributes that distinction; a correctly translated object noun cannot supply it alone.
The source dual does not have a separate Irish entry in this paradigm
Lower Sorbian nama identifies a dual first-person reference in Stone’s table. Teanglann’s ag paradigm distinguishes singular and plural, without a separate dual form. Accordingly, an Irish plural prepositional form may represent the source pair, but it does not by itself retain the exact count of two. Preserve that precision through context or wording when it matters.
The database also distinguishes aige and aici for masculine versus feminine third-person singular reference. A Lower Sorbian source pronoun’s person, number and gender may therefore survive through different pieces of target morphology. First establish the referent, then its relation to the event, and finally whether the exact pair or gender distinction needs to remain explicit. This avoids adding a redundant pronoun while losing a meaningful source distinction.
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