Persian to Romanian: rā does not predict pe on every translated object
Persian can mark a book as well as a person
The Texas Persian object lesson gives ketāb rā xaridam, I bought the book, alongside u rā didam, I saw him or her. Rā identifies the relevant object relationship in both examples. In these attested sentences, its presence is therefore not restricted to a person, and it cannot tell a Romanian translator that the corresponding noun must automatically take pe.
This is consequential in a report mentioning both a purchased book and someone met during the purchase. Both Persian object phrases can carry rā while referring to different kinds of participants. A target rule that inserts pe after spotting rā would overlook Romanian’s own conditions rather than preserve a shared word meaning.
Romanian object marking depends on the nominal and construction
Monica Irimia’s study of differential object marking explains that Romanian pe cannot be reduced to a simple definite-versus-indefinite rule. Its examples include obligatory marking with certain demonstrative or interrogative objects, and other environments that exclude it. The translator needs the target object’s grammatical kind and the predicate’s construction, not just a source marker count.
The study’s pe care question, which one, is especially instructive because the object can be animate or inanimate in the illustrated construction. Thus the useful warning is not to replace the false rule every rā becomes pe with the equally crude rule pe is only for people. Particular pronominal constructions have their own requirements.
Applied to Persian, first determine whether the source names an ordinary book noun, refers to a person, or asks which item is involved. Then choose the Romanian construction expressing that reference. A Persian object marker can help identify the role without settling every target choice about differential marking.
A short target pronoun need not add another object
The Romanian study also illustrates clitic doubling in some marked-object constructions. A weak pronoun and an overt object phrase can identify the same referent. If the source contains one person or one book, the appearance of two object-related target expressions does not necessarily multiply the people or books in the event.
Conversely, an untranslated Persian rā should not be retained as though it were an independent Romanian pronoun. It contributes object marking in the source phrase, not a free-standing item meaning him or it. The target’s short pronoun must refer coherently to the actual object rather than serve as a placeholder for an unrelated source particle.
For this direction, preserve the actor, the object and the object’s intended reference first. Romanian pe and any accompanying clitic must then follow the target nominal construction. Different surface amounts of marking can describe the same event, while a mechanical marker substitution can create an inappropriate construction even when all the source nouns appear to have been translated.
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