Welsh to Turkmen: liking, ability and permission need different constructions
Similar Welsh endings do not make the meanings interchangeable
The Welsh Foundation guide distinguishes Hoffwn i dalu, I would like to pay, from Gallwn i dalu, I could pay, and Dylwn i dalu, I should pay. Their related-looking personal patterns do not collapse desire, capability, and obligation into one message.
David Gray’s Turkmen grammar separately describes desire constructions and expressions of ability. Its ability discussion uses a converb of the action with a form of bilmek. A Welsh statement that somebody wants to perform an action should therefore not automatically become a claim that they know how or are able to perform it.
For an original Welsh travel message, compare wanting to learn a language with being able to buy bread using it. The first expresses a desired activity; the second describes capability in an actual task. Substituting a familiar target modal without preserving that difference could turn an aspiration into an assertion of existing competence.
Permission is another decision again
The Welsh guide presents Gaf i? with a will-or-may-I interpretation in its cael future paradigm. Whether the utterance asks for authorization must be understood through the construction and situation, rather than inferred simply from future-related morphology.
Gray illustrates Turkmen mümkinmi in a question asking whether taking a photograph is possible. His grammar treats this separately from the ability construction. A Welsh request to take someone’s photograph should consequently retain its permission-seeking function instead of merely reporting that the camera works or the speaker has the necessary skill.
For an original exchange, a person can be technically capable of taking a picture while still awaiting permission. They can also have permission but lack the equipment to do it. Those descriptions assign different constraints. A Turkmen result should not make an authorization request disappear merely because ability-related vocabulary seems close enough in an English gloss.
The Welsh short question can leave much of the proposed action understood from the preceding turn. Recover that action before choosing the target construction: the permission concerns a particular activity and participant, not a general assertion that something is possible somewhere.
A negative must retain the same scope
The Welsh conditional tables distinguish positive forms, corresponding negatives, and questions. Gray’s Turkmen account likewise gives construction-specific negative patterns rather than one unchanged negative expression for every verbal environment.
An original Welsh response can mean that a speaker does not want to act, cannot act, or should not act. These are not equivalent refusals. The first concerns willingness, the second capacity, and the third an obligation or recommendation against the action. The target should preserve the particular modal relationship being denied.
For a Welsh reader, the useful test is what information would resolve the problem: a changed preference, practical assistance, or authorization. That distinction follows the source predicate and helps explain why the Turkmen verb phrase may be organized differently. Neither matching word count nor preserving one recognizable action verb establishes that the intended modal meaning survived.
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