Lower Sorbian to Querétaro Otomi: a pair of people is not every construction called dual
Begin with the source participants, not the name of the category
Lower Sorbian retains active dual number, according to the DOBES description. A source expression referring to exactly two people can therefore carry information that is more precise than an unrestricted plural. That pair has to remain identifiable in an Otomi translation even where the target construction packages participants differently.
Palancar’s study concerns San Ildefonso Tultepec Otomi, a specifically identified Querétaro variety. It describes split coordination: one participant occurs before the verb and another after it, while the verb contains dual marking. In his introductory example, John is eating with Peter. The two people occupy unequal discourse positions.
An original Lower Sorbian account in which two people both eat does not automatically assert that they eat together. A target construction describing eating with another person could add simultaneity and companionship. Exact source count is necessary, but count alone does not establish that comitative relationship.
Together and simply both are different claims
Palancar explains that the split construction represents a comitative event with a more prominent participant and an associate. His eating example implies the same activity at the same time and place. An ordinary coordination stating that John and Peter had a meal does not necessarily supply all those implications.
For a Lower Sorbian source comparing two travellers who ate separately, the dual may retain both people as a pair across the account. Translating their meal through the documented comitative construction would be misleading. The pair can remain the relevant set without performing every activity jointly.
Conversely, an original source account focused on one traveller accompanied by another can require the companionship to remain clear. Merely producing a target plural meaning that the travellers acted would lose the source’s participant asymmetry. Who is being followed through the narrative and who joins that person are meaningful distinctions.
Target plural morphology does not always mean more than two
In the documented variety, Palancar finds dual marking highly restricted outside split coordination. Plural morphology can serve as the ordinary non-singular expression, including reference to two. His examples and paradigms therefore do not support replacing every Lower Sorbian dual with a target element bearing the label dual.
A plural-looking target expression can preserve a source pair when its reference is correctly established. But the expression alone may not independently identify exactly two. For an original source statement contrasting the two walkers with their larger group, make that contrast recoverable without treating target plural marking as proof that the pair has expanded.
The scope matters on both sides: the DOBES overview identifies an active Lower Sorbian number distinction, while Palancar documents particular Otomi constructional restrictions. The translation must preserve the participants and the relationship between them within the relevant target variety. Counting people, marking a grammatical category and presenting someone as a companion are related decisions, but they are not interchangeable.
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