Tibetan to Galician: a possessive may need an explicit owner
Agreement alone does not reveal who owns the item
The Galician teaching resource published by the Xunta explains that possessives agree with the possessed noun, rather than the possessor. A Tibetan source phrase identifying an owner therefore needs a separate decision about the gender and number of the Galician noun. The target possessive form cannot be treated as a direct description of the owner.
The documented series meu, miña and meus illustrates agreement while retaining a first-person owner. A Tibetan speaker can refer to different possessions without becoming a different person each time the Galician possessive changes. Follow the noun introduced by the possessive when selecting agreement, and follow the discourse when identifying whose possession it is.
Third-person possession can conceal several possible owners
The Xunta resource explains that Galician third-person singular and plural possessive forms coincide. An expression with seu can therefore require interpretation from its setting. It recommends de plus a personal pronoun where an explicit owner is needed; the short example o libro dela identifies the book as hers.
This is useful when a Tibetan text distinguishes two people and then refers to one person’s book. A target phrase that is formally grammatical may still leave the owner unclear. If the source resolves the relationship, the translation should preserve that resolution rather than introduce uncertainty merely to keep the target phrase short.
The definite article belongs to the target construction
The Galician resource gives a general pattern in which a possessive preceding the noun requires an article, while noting particular exceptions. A Tibetan sequence containing a noun, modifiers and a demonstrative should not be mapped mechanically onto a Galician noun phrase by placing one target word under each source element.
Garrett and Hill’s written Tibetan study identifies distinct positions for modifiers and plural or demonstrative material. Those source relations need to be recovered before the Galician phrase is assembled. The fact that the Tibetan source has already identified the referent does not make an independently required component of the target possessive construction unnecessary.
Respectful possessives have a limited distribution
The Xunta lesson documents special respectful forms with a restricted set of nouns, including padre and madre. Its example mi madre should not be expanded into a rule that mi replaces ordinary possessives before any noun whenever the Tibetan text sounds respectful.
This restriction matters in a Tibetan passage mentioning both a respected family member and that person’s belongings. The translation should not spread the special family expression to unrelated possessions. Nor should an ordinary Galician agreement form be interpreted as disrespect merely because another phrase uses a special form. Identify the particular relationship and the noun that expresses it, then choose the construction licensed there. This preserves the source reference without inventing a target-wide honorific rule.
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