Tibetan to Indonesian: a repeated form is not automatically plural
Repetition can make a different lexical item
Indonesian reduplication has several functions. The Indonesian documentation contrasts anak-anak, children, with mata-mata, spy, which is singular in the illustrated use. A Tibetan source group cannot therefore be translated by doubling any target noun and assuming the result will simply mean several instances of it.
Garrett and Hill identify plural material such as rnams and dag in written Tibetan noun phrases. That source number needs to be preserved, but the target lexical form must be checked independently. A Tibetan passage about several observers should not acquire the meaning spy merely because the translator tries to create a plural through uncontrolled repetition.
An adjective or event can be repeated too
The Indonesian documentation also includes reduplicated verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Its example terus-menerus expresses continuously rather than a plural collection of physical objects. A Tibetan source expression describing repeated or sustained activity should not be interpreted as a noun phrase solely because target repetition is visible.
This matters when a Tibetan report mentions several people carrying out an activity continuously. Participant plurality and event continuation belong to different parts of the meaning. The Indonesian version should not express only one by misusing the other. Identify the people referred to separately from the manner or duration of what they do.
The same ending can mark ownership or an affected participant
The Indonesian documentation illustrates -nya as possessive material in bukunya, his or her book, but also as a pronominal object attached to a verb. A Tibetan participant must therefore be assigned its actual role before the target ending is interpreted. Its appearance does not by itself prove that the preceding word denotes something owned.
Garrett and Hill’s phrase-boundary analysis is useful when recovering that role from written Tibetan. A person who owns a book and a person affected by an action can appear close together in a source passage. Attaching target pronominal material to the wrong element risks changing an ownership description into an action directed at the owner, or the reverse.
Not yet and do not carry different instructions
The Indonesian documentation distinguishes belum, not yet, from jangan in prohibitions. A Tibetan report that an activity has not happened should not automatically become an instruction preventing it. The target must preserve whether the source informs the reader about event status or tells the reader what to avoid doing.
In a Tibetan account of children who have not yet read a book, the relevant distinctions can interact: the children form a group, the book may belong to somebody else, and reading remains uncompleted at the reference time. The Indonesian translation should preserve all three without introducing a prohibition. Accurate noun reference, ownership and negative meaning must be reconstructed together rather than inferred from a repeated form or a familiar ending.
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