Welsh to Sesotho: asking who acted, whom they affected or whether something happened
A question about the actor can require a different Sesotho structure
The Welsh Foundation guide illustrates Pwy welaist ti?, asking whom you saw. The unknown person is the person seen, while ti identifies the person who did the seeing. This is different from asking who performed an action. Translating both merely as a question containing who loses an important distinction.
Katherine Demuth’s description of Sesotho explains that information questions generally leave the question expression in its ordinary position. Questions about the subject, however, use a passive or a cleft construction in the described system. The grammatical role of the unknown participant therefore affects the form of the target question.
For Welsh enquiries, first identify which participant the question leaves open. If the Welsh asks whom an identified person saw, the missing information concerns the affected participant. If it asks who performed an action, the missing information concerns the actor. A Sesotho sentence that preserves the question word but switches these roles requests a different answer.
A target passive need not mean the source was evasive
Demuth illustrates Sesotho questioning an actor through a passive by-phrase. Her example di-jó dí-bátl-w-a ké mang? asks who wants food through a construction whose literal structure makes the food the thing wanted. The actor is still the information requested.
A Welsh-to-Sesotho translation can therefore introduce a passive structure while preserving a direct question about the actor. Do not reject it simply because the source looked active. In this construction, the target’s passive serves the question system; it does not necessarily conceal responsibility or make the question less direct.
The opposite caution also matters. Welsh itself has a passive construction with cael, illustrated in the Foundation guide’s birth expressions. Its presence does not mean that every Sesotho passive has the same purpose. A biographical birth statement reports an event, while a passive actor-question requests missing information. Identify the clause’s communicative job before comparing grammatical labels.
Confirmation questions do not need the same changes as actor questions
The Welsh guide contrasts Af i with Af i?, a future statement and a question about going. The words can look very similar, yet the question asks for confirmation rather than for an unknown actor. It is therefore a different translation problem from a pwy question.
Demuth describes Sesotho yes–no questions using intonation and an optional question marker nâ:, which may appear at the beginning or end. That account does not require adding an English-style questioning auxiliary. Preserve the request for confirmation through an appropriate Sesotho question rather than inventing an extra actor or replacing it with a who question.
In written translation, punctuation helps show that confirmation is being requested, but punctuation alone cannot repair a question with the wrong participant structure. An enquiry about whether an event happened and an enquiry about who caused it have different information gaps.
These distinctions are especially useful for short Welsh messages where the sender expects a precise reply. Decide whether the answer should identify a person, identify an affected participant, or confirm a proposition. Then let Sesotho’s described question constructions express that request, even when the target order differs substantially from Welsh.
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