Persian to Querétaro Otomi: one speaker with a father can form a two-person event
The Persian first person can name the prominent participant
The Texas Persian preposition lesson gives man bā pedaram be xāne raftam, I went home with my father. The speaker is the first-person participant associated with the finite verb, while the father is introduced as a companion. In the described event, the father does not become an object transported as luggage merely because he is not the main subject expression.
A Querétaro Otomi translation needs to preserve the accompanying relationship. Turning the sentence into I went home after my father would separate their journeys; turning it into I took my father home could add a transport or escort relationship beyond what the Persian example explicitly states. The source identifies company on the journey.
San Ildefonso Tultepec Otomi can count the companion in agreement
Enrique Palancar’s study describes split coordination in San Ildefonso Tultepec Otomi, a Querétaro variety. Its opening example means John is eating with Peter. John appears before the verb and Peter after it, while dual agreement reflects the two actors together. The target construction can count both participants even though their noun phrases occupy different positions.
This is useful for the Persian speaker-and-father example. A dual form in an appropriate Otomi comitative construction need not invent a second main clause or additional unnamed people. It can reflect the speaker and the companion already present in the source. Persian singular first-person agreement does not require the target to ignore that joint participation.
At the same time, the Otomi construction is not an instruction to rewrite every Persian singular subject as dual. A companion must actually be present in the meaning. The participant count comes from the complete event, not from an automatic adjustment applied to every occurrence of man.
Simple coordination may lose the together relationship
Palancar distinguishes comitative events from bare coordination: saying John and Peter had a meal need not entail that they ate together at the same time and place. His split construction presents a prominent actor and an associated actor in a joint event. That contrast helps preserve Persian bā when it genuinely expresses accompaniment.
For the homeward journey, a loose list of the speaker and father could permit separate trips if nothing else connects them. A target comitative interpretation should retain their participation together. Conversely, a Persian statement merely listing two people’s independent actions should not acquire accompaniment simply because an Otomi construction can express it.
The evidence here concerns the San Ildefonso Tultepec variety studied, rather than every language called Otomi. Within that scope, preserve the Persian speaker’s prominence, the father’s companionship and the actual journey relationship. Target agreement may acknowledge both actors while the source retains a singular grammatical subject; those different forms can still describe the same two-person event.
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