Lower Sorbian to Italian: self-reference, passive si and whose property it is
A source se and an Italian si can perform several jobs
Stone’s grammar gives Lower Sorbian myś se for washing oneself, but also describes se in a passive interpretation, illustrated by a pupil being praised by the headmaster. An Italian output containing si therefore needs to be read as a construction, not accepted merely because it resembles the source marker. Treccani distinguishes reflexive, passive and impersonal uses of Italian si.
Its examples include si lava for a self-directed washing action and si dicono tante sciocchezze for a passive-type statement about foolish things being said. The second does not describe those things speaking to themselves. When the Lower Sorbian source describes praise or criticism, establish who receives it and whether an actor is named. The target marker can help build the required voice, but its presence alone cannot demonstrate that those roles have survived.
Owning one’s own item is not always the same as owning his item
Stone distinguishes Lower Sorbian swoj from nonreflexive possessives in contexts where the owner is linked to the subject. His discussion notes that a nonreflexive third-person possession can be ambiguous about whether the item belongs to the subject or someone else. That is useful source information for an Italian translation of a message about taking or returning personal belongings.
The Accademia della Crusca gives a parallel Italian ambiguity involving Maria, Sara and a car: propria identifies Maria’s vehicle in the cited construction, whereas sua can leave the ownership uncertain. This does not make proprio and suo universally interchangeable. The same consultation explains that proprio cannot simply replace suo when the possessor is not the sentence’s subject. Establish the owner in the Lower Sorbian original before selecting the Italian possessive, particularly when two people of the same gender appear in the sentence.
A lexical reflexive need not report an action on the self
Lower Sorbian bojaś se, fear, belongs to Stone’s list of verbs that are reflexive in form without having a nonreflexive counterpart. It should not be expanded into an invented self-directed action in Italian. This differs from the source washing example, where the same person genuinely performs and receives the action. The lexical meaning of the complete source verb determines which comparison is relevant.
Treccani also illustrates Italian impersonal si dice with a following clause, where the expression reports what people say rather than supplying a named individual who speaks to themselves. A source statement about what is said in general and one about a particular person’s fear may both involve small reference markers, but they make different claims about participants.
For this pair, distinguish three relationships before interpreting the target: an actor acting on themselves, an unspecified actor affecting something, and an owner linked to the subject. Reflexive-looking material can contribute to any of these discussions without licensing one fixed word replacement. Preserving the source relationship is the reason for choosing the appropriate complete Italian construction.
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