Lower Sorbian to Tigrinya: ownership, family relationships and possessive emphasis
A possessive does not always describe an owned object
Gebregziabher’s Tigrinya dissertation contrasts nay ħagos in a phrase for Hagos’s book, with wəәddi ħagos, Hagos’s son. The two phrases differ in both the presence of nay and the order of possessor and possessed noun. Treating the second phrase as an accidentally shortened version of the first would erase a distinction documented in the target grammar.
For Lower Sorbian family descriptions, first identify whether the source links a relative to a person or names an independently owned item. A source possessive relationship does not instruct the translator to insert one universal Tigrinya ownership word. The dissertation analyzes the contrast as alienable versus inalienable possession. That terminology classifies constructions; it does not claim that relatives are transferable property.
The study’s examples also contrast the patterns for a sister and a house. When both occur in one Lower Sorbian account, their target phrases need not share the same possessor order. A target change in word order can preserve the intended relationships, while mechanical uniformity could distort them.
Source subject-reference and target emphasis answer different questions
Stone describes Lower Sorbian swoj as generally linking a possessor to the sentence’s subject, while noting that usage is not absolutely uniform. His pencil example illustrates that subject-related ownership. A different source possessive can leave broader reference possibilities. Recovering whose item is meant is therefore necessary before selecting the corresponding Tigrinya possessive expression.
Mason’s Tigrinya handbook describes both possessive suffixes and independent possessive pronouns. Used adjectivally, the independent forms can replace suffixes and suggest emphasis. A Lower Sorbian reflexive possessive is not automatically a demand for an emphatic independent target form: linking ownership to the actor and contrasting one owner against another are different communicative jobs.
If the Lower Sorbian sentence simply says that the actor uses their own pencil, preserve that ownership without inventing a dispute over whose pencil it is. If it explicitly contrasts that person’s item with somebody else’s, the contrast also matters. The target’s choice between possessive resources should follow that difference, rather than the number of separately written source words.
A plural house expression can have a broader established meaning
Mason warns that a literal plural-house gloss can mislead: a Tigrinya possessive expression may describe somebody’s neighborhood, although buildings owned by a landlord are another possible interpretation. This is a lexical and contextual distinction, not permission to replace every Lower Sorbian plural referring to houses with a neighborhood.
The source has to establish whether it describes several separate buildings or somebody’s local surroundings. Ownership suffixes do not decide that question alone. In this direction, three checks consequently remain distinct: who the possessor is, what relationship connects the nouns, and what the complete target expression conventionally denotes. A faithful family description, pencil reference or neighborhood description can change its visible possessive structure without changing the people or places involved.
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