Lower Sorbian to Romanian: repeated reference can still identify one participant
A name and a short pronoun can refer to the same object
Gönczöl-Davies’s Romanian grammar illustrates O iubesc pe Carla and Îl vizitez pe Mihai. The short object pronoun and the named person belong to the same relationship; they do not introduce two separate people. A Lower Sorbian sentence naming somebody who is loved or visited may therefore produce more reference material in Romanian without adding a participant.
This is especially useful when the source object already has a recognizable case form. Stone describes Lower Sorbian animate-object patterns that distinguish roles through inflection. Romanian can make a relationship explicit through a name, pe and a clitic together. Do not remove the short target form merely to match the source’s number of pronouns. At the same time, establish that it refers to the named person rather than accepting every apparent repetition without checking its role.
Reflexive material may mark voice or possession instead of another person
The Romanian grammatical annotation team distinguishes inherently pronominal verbs, impersonal constructions, passive-value reflexives and possessive-value reflexives. A small target reference form cannot consequently be assigned a fixed self-object meaning independently of its verb construction. Lower Sorbian presents a related interpretive issue: Stone contrasts myś se, washing oneself, with bojaś se, fearing, where reflexive form is lexical.
For a Lower Sorbian passage about someone caring for personal belongings, identify the owner and the person acting before interpreting Romanian reflexive material. The target can relate a possession to the actor without turning the possession into a second actor. For a source passive report, likewise distinguish the person or item affected from an omitted or separately expressed agent. Similar terminology on both sides helps identify the question, but it does not establish a word-for-word substitution.
A respectful address form can retain singular reference
The Romanian grammar describes dumneavoastră as a polite address form used with second-person plural verbal agreement, including when the addressee is one individual. A Lower Sorbian respectful wy therefore needs its real reference established before target plurality is evaluated. Stone explicitly allows honorific wy to address one person or two; source form alone does not settle the count.
This creates a concrete distinction between grammatical agreement and event participants. A polite instruction to one person to visit Mihai contains one listener and one person visited. Plural agreement in the address does not add a visiting group, just as a Romanian object clitic alongside Mihai does not add another visited person.
Conversely, a genuine Lower Sorbian dual referring to two actors must not be dismissed as politeness when the context identifies a pair. Read the source count together with its mode of address. In the target, evaluate the address form, object reference and reflexive construction separately. They can all contribute small forms around the same verb, but each contributes a different relationship. The translation remains faithful only when those relationships point to the original participants.
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