Lower Sorbian to Mongolian: an object can lose its visible case ending
The same event role need not receive the same marking
Lower Sorbian case forms help identify what a verb acts on. Stone’s personal-pronoun table distinguishes subject ja from the form mje used in accusative and genitive functions. That does not mean every source accusative should produce a visibly suffixed Mongolian noun. The target makes a further distinction between particular objects and more general ones.
Tokyo University of Foreign Studies illustrates that distinction with ном, book, in a sentence about reading an unspecified book, and энэ номыг, this book, for an identified object. The unmarked noun still functions as the thing read. Its missing accusative suffix does not make it the reader or remove it from the event.
Identification is part of the translation decision
The Tokyo lesson associates accusative marking with personal pronouns, proper names and objects made specific through demonstratives or other modifiers. It contrasts these with indefinite common nouns. Consequently, a Lower Sorbian sentence about reading a book cannot be translated through case labels alone: the translator must establish whether the conversation identifies a particular book.
Stone’s Lower Sorbian demonstrative paradigm includes ten, to and ta, with distinctions involving gender and case. A demonstrative in the source is therefore relevant evidence about identification, but its gendered ending should not be copied as though it selected a Mongolian object suffix. The source form identifies both a grammatical environment and a noun reference; the target reorganizes that information differently.
An unmarked object still needs a clear position
The Mongolian lesson explains that an unmarked object can resemble a subject in form, making order and context important. It normally stays close to the predicate to avoid confusion. It also notes that an indefinite object may receive explicit accusative marking when intervening material would otherwise obscure the relationship. Thus absence or presence of an ending is not an infallible one-factor test for definiteness.
This qualification matters when a Lower Sorbian sentence contains a long description between its object and verb. Retaining that arrangement while dropping the target case ending may make the clause harder to interpret. Conversely, seeing an ending on the Mongolian object does not automatically prove that the translator has changed an unspecified object into a previously identified one. Clause organization can motivate explicit marking too.
Pronouns cannot be handled like arbitrary common nouns
Lower Sorbian’s mje already shows that a personal pronoun may change its form when used as an object. The Mongolian lesson likewise gives a changed accusative stem for the first-person pronoun, rather than merely attaching a suffix to the subject form. Both languages therefore warn against treating a personal reference as an immutable label, although their actual paradigms are different.
For a Lower Sorbian request involving a person and an object, resolve these references separately. A personal object has a different target marking expectation from an unspecified common noun; a demonstrative can make that noun more specific; and a long interruption can create a need for clearer marking. Preserving who acts on whom requires all three decisions. A successful translation can therefore use a different visible case pattern while keeping the source’s participants and intended reference intact.
Language references