Persian to Somali: carry the question’s focus into the answer
Find the participant the Persian question leaves unknown
Persian ki can ask about a subject or another participant without acquiring a separate nominative versus object form. Roberts illustrates ki dar=o bāz kard?, who opened the door, and nāser bā ki raft, who Nasser went with. The same question word belongs to two different relationships. A Somali rendering therefore needs to identify whether the missing information is the actor, a companion or another participant before choosing the sentence construction.
This also matters when translating the reply. A name that answers who opened the door supplies the previously unknown actor; a name answering who accompanied Nasser supplies a companion. Treating both as an ordinary subject because they name a person can alter the event. Read the Persian question and answer as a connected exchange. An object marker or preposition in the question can identify the requested relationship even when the answer consists only of a name.
Persian emphasis can select a different part of the message
The University of Texas question lesson shows that Persian barā-ye ce, what for or why, can support different concerns depending on placement and stress. Its paired examples ask why somebody was brought along, but distinguish concern about the person’s reason for being there from concern about choosing that particular person. In colloquial usage the lesson explicitly allows stress to carry these readings despite the different orders.
For a Persian-to-Somali exchange, preserve that conversational issue rather than simply retaining the source sequence of words. The reply may explain a purpose or defend the selection of one person over another. Those are different pieces of new information even if both replies concern the same arrival. A written Persian sentence without marked stress can leave the distinction less obvious, so the preceding objection or question becomes relevant evidence. Do not infer that the first noun must be the information the speaker intends to highlight.
Somali subject focus changes more than a particle
Nilsson’s contrastive grammar illustrates Ardaygu waa uu qorayaa beside Ardayga baa qoraya. In the latter subject-focused construction, the noun lacks the ordinary subject ending, no short subject pronoun follows the focus particle, and the present verb has a shortened ending. The difference is therefore not made by inserting baa into an otherwise unchanged sentence. This is directly relevant when the answer to a Persian who question identifies the actor.
The grammar separately explains that focusing another constituent preserves the ordinary subject pattern, including its short subject pronoun. Consequently, a Persian reply highlighting a companion or object should not automatically receive the actor-focused construction. The same participant names can be retained while the focus relationship changes. Nilsson also shows subject-focus alternatives with baa, ayaa and waxa(a), so source position alone cannot prescribe one target ordering. Recover what the Persian exchange is correcting or supplying, then distinguish that focus choice from the ordinary grammatical role of each participant.
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