Tibetan to Dari: the large person and the large possession are different phrases
Ezafa order determines which noun the adjective describes
Adam Baker’s Dari grammar illustrates how an adjective’s position within a chain changes its attachment. A Tibetan description containing an owner and a possession should therefore be interpreted for what the adjective modifies before the Dari phrase is assembled. Merely preserving all the nouns and the word big does not preserve the meaning.
The grammar contrasts seb-e bacha kalan, the big boy’s apple, with seb-e kalan-e bacha, the boy’s big apple, in simplified Romanisation here. The difference concerns whether the size description applies to the person or the fruit. A Tibetan target phrase must keep that descriptive scope rather than use one target sequence for both.
The owner comes after the descriptive chain
The Dari grammar places the possessor at the end of an ezafa chain. A Tibetan noun phrase may use a different sequence of head and modifiers, so the translator needs to recover the complete relationship before arranging the target words. The nearest source word is not necessarily the noun a target adjective must modify.
Garrett and Hill identify several internal positions in written Tibetan noun phrases and use phrase-final case markers to locate boundaries. That source structure helps establish where a description ends and another participant begins. A Tibetan sentence about a person’s old item should not become a description of an old person unless the source adjective actually modifies the owner.
Own links possession to the subject
The Dari grammar describes khud in a possession construction where the owner is the subject. Its example concerns Ahmad buying his own book. A Tibetan statement that someone buys a book must therefore be read for whether the book belongs to that actor or to another participant before an own construction is introduced.
Zeisler associates some Standard Spoken Tibetan epistemic forms with responsibility or personal involvement. That relationship to the event does not automatically identify the owner of an object inside it. A speaker can know a purchase closely while reporting somebody else’s property. The Dari translation must keep event involvement separate from reflexive ownership.
An official title should not become an adjective
Garrett and Hill distinguish Tibetan blon-chen, prime minister, from blon-po chen-po, great minister. This contrast matters when the phrase identifies an owner in a longer description. Before constructing the Dari chain, determine whether the source identifies an office or evaluates the person holding it.
A Tibetan account might describe a minister’s large possession and then praise the minister. The target must keep the office identification, the item’s size and the later evaluation distinct. An ezafa chain can be grammatically well formed while placing a descriptive word with the wrong noun. Recovering source scope first makes the final Dari phrase express the same person–property relation rather than an accidental alternative.
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