Welsh to Telugu: personal information can appear on a predicate noun
A Welsh yn construction need not produce a separate target linker
Canolfan Peniarth describes predicative Welsh yn before nouns and adjectives, with relevant soft mutation. That construction differs from verbal yn before a verb noun. A source expression identifying somebody’s occupation should therefore be distinguished from a sentence describing an activity.
Troy Messick’s Telugu study illustrates personal agreement on predicate nouns with neenu vidyaardhi-ni, I am a student, and nuvvu vidyaardhi-wi, you are a student. The occupational noun is not simply copied unchanged while all personal information stands in a separate equivalent of Welsh bod.
For an original Welsh introduction, compare identifying oneself as a student with telling another person that they are a student. The Telugu noun’s ending can contribute to that personal relationship. A visible ending change does not establish that the occupation changed, and the absence of a separate matching word for Welsh yn does not establish that the predicate relationship was lost.
The pattern does not extend identically to every person
Messick’s account limits the illustrated pronominal suffix pattern on predicate nouns and adjectives to particular person-number combinations. It is not a rule that every Telugu noun must carry a distinct personal ending whenever it describes somebody.
The Welsh Foundation guide presents personal paradigms with separate pronouns across several constructions. A Welsh writer accustomed to that pattern should not require a visibly different target suffix for every source pronoun before accepting that the reference is preserved.
For an original introduction involving the writer, one colleague, and a group of students, determine who each predicate describes. A target form shared across some grammatical environments can still retain the right reference through the complete construction. Conversely, reproducing a first-person-looking ending in a description of somebody else would not be justified merely because a nearby sentence introduced the speaker.
The useful comparison is between the source person and the target predicate in that particular clause. Do not transfer an ending from an earlier self-introduction into every later occupation description, and do not treat a target form lacking that ending as if it lacked a subject altogether.
A plural we can add a listener-membership choice
The Telugu study also distinguishes inclusive manamu from exclusive meemu among first-person plural pronouns. Welsh ni does not itself encode that same distinction.
For an original Welsh introduction, compare a writer introducing themselves and the person being addressed as students with a writer introducing themselves and an absent colleague to a visitor. Both source descriptions can use we, but only the first includes the listener in the described group. The Telugu reference should retain that membership difference.
This is separate from the predicate-noun ending: identifying the people correctly does not reduce to matching one suffix. Recover whether Welsh ni includes the addressee, establish how many people the sentence concerns, and interpret the target predicate through the applicable person-number construction. The translation should preserve the group’s identity and stated occupation without silently recruiting the visitor into it.
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