06 Linguistic Gap Analysis — 2 Samuel (English → Mandarin)

1. Purpose and Method

This document identifies where the destination language (Mandarin) has no ready-made vocabulary for a 2 Samuel concept (a missing-vocabulary gap), and where a single Mandarin term is forced to carry multiple, potentially colliding senses drawn from 2 Samuel’s Hebrew vocabulary and/or Chinese religious-cultural vocabulary (a crowded semantic neighborhood requiring fencing). It also records transliteration-vs-paraphrase decisions and ranks the curriculum’s highest-risk ambiguities.

This analysis extends, and must never contradict, the baseline Romans translation_memory.json, bible_term_registry.json, and doctrine_risk_registry.json. Where a 2 Samuel term is etymologically or theologically downstream of an existing baseline entry (e.g., 后裔 → seed_of_david; 义 → righteousness; 罪 → sin; 救恩 → salvation), the baseline rendering is reused exactly and is not re-litigated here except to note the cross-Testament link.

Scope is the full book, 2 Samuel 1–24, per the full-book coverage mandate. The core passage (7:1-17) is the theological anchor for risk-ranking, not the boundary of analysis.

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2. Full-Book Chapter Coverage Ledger

Ch.	Content Summary	Linguistic/Doctrinal Contribution	Coverage Status
1	Lament for Saul and Jonathan	哀歌 (lament), 勇士 (mighty man) — literary vocabulary only	Reviewed — minor terms registered, no doctrine gap
2–4	David’s rise; war with the house of Saul (Abner, Ish-bosheth, Joab)	Proper names Abner (押尼珥), Ish-bosheth (伊施波设), Joab (约押); political alliance language (约, reused)	Reviewed — new low-risk proper names only; no new doctrine terms
5	David made king over all Israel; Jerusalem captured	耶和华与他同在 (LORD with him) — already registered under Providence	Reviewed — term already covered
6	Ark brought to Jerusalem; Uzzah’s death; David’s dance	约柜 (ark), 圣洁 (holiness, ritual nuance) — already registered	Reviewed — term already covered
7	Core passage. Davidic covenant	约, 永约, 永远, 家/殿, 国位/宝座, 后裔, 父/子, 耶和华的话, 异象/默示, 仆人, 君, 牧养 — all registered	Fully analyzed (anchor chapter)
8	Summary of David’s victories; administrative roster	Proper names, court-office vocabulary (书记, 元帅)	Reviewed — low-risk administrative vocabulary only, no doctrine gap
9	Mephibosheth shown chesed for Jonathan’s sake	慈爱 (chesed) enacted narratively; 仆人 — already registered	Reviewed — key chesed narrative, term already covered
10	Ammon/Aram war; humiliation of David’s envoys	羞辱 (cherpah/shame) — already registered; sets up ch.11	Reviewed — term already covered
11	David’s adultery and Uriah’s murder	奸淫, 血/流人血的罪 — already registered	Fully analyzed (David’s Sin doctrine anchor)
12	Nathan’s rebuke; confession; guilt removed; sword consequence; Jedidiah	我得罪耶和华了, 耶和华已经除掉你的罪, 刀剑必永不离开你的家, 罪孽, 耶底底亚 — all registered	Fully analyzed (Repentance/Consequences doctrine anchor)
13	Amnon, Tamar, Absalom	丑事/污辱的事 (nevalah) — already registered	Reviewed — term already covered
14	Absalom’s return via the wise woman of Tekoa	Minor: 智慧的妇人 (“wise woman”) — narrative device, no distinct theological term	Reviewed — no new doctrine term required
15–18	Absalom’s rebellion; Ahithophel/Hushai; Shimei’s curse; Absalom’s death	背叛/谋反 (qesher) — already registered; new item: Shimei “cursed” David the LORD’s anointed (16:5-13) directly invokes 受膏者 (meshiach) in a political-danger context	Reviewed — rebellion vocabulary covered; cross-link to 受膏者 noted below (§4, §7)
19	David’s return; reconciliation with Shimei, Mephibosheth, Amasa	Reconciliation language; no new theological term beyond registered chesed/rebellion vocabulary	Reviewed — no new term required
20	Sheba’s revolt; death of Amasa	背叛/谋反 — already registered	Reviewed — term already covered
21	Gibeonite bloodguilt resolved; famine; LORD relented	流血的罪 (national bloodguilt), 神应允那地的祈求 (relented) — already registered	Reviewed — term already covered
22	David’s song of deliverance	磐石, 救恩, 义, 拯救我的角 — already registered	Reviewed — term already covered
23	David’s last words; “the Spirit of the LORD spoke by me” (23:2); naming of the 永约 (23:5); roster of mighty men	New gap identified: רוּחַ יהוה (“Spirit of the LORD,” 23:2) has no registered term — see §4, §7. 永约 (23:5) already registered; 勇士 roster already registered	Partially new — one gap identified and filled below
24	David’s census; plague; altar on Araunah’s threshing floor; burnt/peace offerings	数点百姓, 瘟疫, 祭坛, 燔祭, 平安祭 — all registered	Reviewed — term already covered

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3. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

Doctrine	Available Mandarin Terms	Weaknesses / Collision Risks	Recommended Strategy
The Davidic Covenant and the Promise of an Eternal Throne	约 (reused); 永约, 永远 (new, Critical); 家 (dynasty) / 殿·殿宇 (temple) (new, Critical/High); 国位 / 宝座 (new, High); 后裔 (reused via seed_of_david); 父 / 子 (父 reused, 子 new, Critical)	(1) Hebrew bayit covers both “dynasty” and “temple” — Mandarin has no single word that preserves ch.7’s central wordplay; (2) 永远 risks being read through the lens of the revocable Mandate of Heaven (天命); (3) 国位/国 risk of a merely dynastic-political reading that never reaches its messianic horizon	Mandatory translator’s note on every occurrence of the bayit wordplay (v.5, 11, 13, 16) cross-referencing 家 and 殿; mandatory contrast note pairing 永约/永远 against 天命’s conditionality; footnote linking 国位/后裔 forward to Luke 1:32-33 and seed_of_david without asserting identity prematurely
David’s Sin and Repentance	罪 (reused); 罪孽 (new, Medium); 奸淫 (new, Medium); fixed formulas 我得罪耶和华了 / 耶和华已经除掉你的罪 (new, Critical)	罪 alone risks a criminal-guilt or folk-karmic (报应) reading per baseline’s existing caution; softening the confession formula into a generic “I made a mistake” would strip its covenant-relational weight	Enforce the two fixed CUV phrases verbatim, no paraphrase permitted; every ch.11-12 occurrence routed to human theologian review per baseline sin precedent
Consequences of Sin within the Covenant Family	刀剑必永不离开你的家 (fixed, Critical); 谋反 / 背叛 (new, High); 丑事 / 污辱的事 (new, Medium); 数点百姓 (new, Medium); 瘟疫 (new, Medium); 流(人)血的罪 (new, Medium)	谋反 imports Mandate-of-Heaven treason/legitimacy-loss connotations that could imply David’s throne is forfeitable, contradicting 7:15-16’s unconditional promise; 数点百姓 risks reading as a morally neutral modern census	Mandatory contrast note at every 谋反/背叛 occurrence (chs. 15-20) affirming the throne’s unconditional security despite real, painful temporal consequence; teach discipline (家 + 杖, 7:14b) as operating within an unbroken covenant, never as covenant termination
God’s Steadfast Love despite Human Failure	慈爱 (new, Critical); 耶底底亚 (new, Medium); 神应允那地的祈求 / 耶和华就不降那灾 (new, High); 祭坛 / 燔祭 / 平安祭 (new, High)	慈爱 risks merging into baseline’s 恩典 (NT charis) and losing its OT covenant-loyalty nuance, or weakening toward mere 怜悯 (pity); “relented” language risks a caprice/mutability reading of God	Mandatory pairing note distinguishing 慈爱 (OT chesed, covenant-loyal love sustained despite failure) from 恩典 (NT charis, unmerited saving favor) at every occurrence; anchor “relented” language explicitly to 神的护理 (providence, baseline doctrine) to preclude fatalism or caprice
The Messianic Hope Rooted in David’s Line	受膏者 (new, Critical); 膏 (new, High); 后裔 (reused); 国位 / 永约 (new); 救恩 (reused)	Greatest risk is collapsing 受膏者 (a reigning historical king) directly into 基督 (the NT eschatological title) before the canonical development is taught, or — in the opposite direction — conflating either with 弥勒 (Maitreya), already flagged in baseline	Two-stage teaching sequence mandatory at every 受膏者 occurrence: (a) historical sense — a divinely set-apart reigning king; (b) trajectory — this vocabulary’s later narrowing into the technical title fulfilled in Christ. Never substitute 基督 into 2 Samuel’s own text

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4. Missing Vocabulary vs Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods

4.1 Missing Vocabulary (concepts with no baseline Romans equivalent — new coinage/compound required)

Gap Category	Term(s)	Why Baseline Doesn’t Cover It	Fill Proposed
Covenant-name theology	耶和华 (YHWH), 主耶和华 (Adonai YHWH), 万军之耶和华 (YHWH Tseva’ot)	Baseline Romans package only required 神 (generic God) and 主 (title applied to Christ); the personal covenant name never appears in Romans	Register all three as new Critical/High entries (already done in bible_term_registry.json); require explicit distinction from 神 (generic) at first teaching occurrence in every lesson
Untranslatable wordplay	בַּיִת → 家 (dynasty) / 殿 (temple)	No single Mandarin lexeme spans both senses the way Hebrew bayit does	Two-term fence with mandatory cross-referencing note (see §5)
Unconditional-covenant terminology	永约, 永远	Romans discusses covenant (约) but never needs to argue for unconditional perpetuity against a rival cosmic-legitimacy framework	New compound 永约 (约 + 永远); mandatory Mandate-of-Heaven contrast note
OT sacrificial-system vocabulary	约柜, 帐幕, 祭坛, 燔祭, 平安祭	Romans assumes but does not narrate OT cultic practice in technical detail	Adopt established technical CUV terms; fence against household/ancestral-altar and merit-purchase readings (see §5)
Court/dynastic vocabulary	君 (nagid), 国位 (throne), 国 (kingdom), 仆人 (covenant-office servant)	Romans has no reigning human king in its subject matter	New entries with Mandate-of-Heaven-adjacent cautions extended from baseline’s 天子/天命 notes
Finer-grained sin vocabulary	罪孽 (avon), 血/流人血的罪 (dam), 丑事 (nevalah), 谋反 (qesher)	Romans’s doctrine of sin is largely abstract/universal; 2 Samuel narrates specific, escalating covenant-family sins requiring finer lexical resolution	Register each as a distinct term keyed to its narrative anchor chapter, per baseline’s sin-caution pattern
Chesed vs charis	慈爱	Romans’s charis (恩典) is a distinct NT Greek theological category; OT chesed requires its own term to avoid flattening two related-but-different biblical-theological threads into one word	New Critical entry 慈爱 with mandatory non-equation note
Spirit of the LORD (newly identified this analysis)	רוּחַ יהוה, 2 Sam 23:2 — “The Spirit of the LORD spoke by me”	Not previously registered in either the baseline or the prior 2 Samuel glossary/registry; a genuine gap surfaced by this full-book review	Register 耶和华的灵 as a new High-risk term; must be taught as continuous with, not separate from, baseline’s 圣灵 (Critical) — the same Spirit who later indwells believers in Romans 8 is already active in David’s inspired speech. Do not render as an impersonal inspiration-force
Rest from enemies (newly identified this analysis)	נוּחַ, 2 Sam 7:1 — “the LORD had given him rest from all his enemies”	Not previously registered; surfaced by close reading of the chapter’s narrative trigger for David’s temple proposal	See §5 below — this is a fencing issue, not a pure vocabulary vacuum, because a ready Mandarin word exists but carries a dangerous collision
Proper names	押尼珥, 伊施波设, 约押, 拿单, 所罗门, 拔示巴, 乌利亚, 押沙龙, 米非波设, 耶底底亚	Not present in the Romans curriculum’s cast of characters	Standard CUV transliterated forms; low risk except where the name itself carries theological meaning (耶底底亚, see §6)

4.2 Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods Requiring Fencing

A “crowded neighborhood” is a single Mandarin term that must carry a distinct 2 Samuel sense while also being pulled toward an existing Chinese religious-cultural or baseline-flagged sense. Each requires an explicit “fence” — a mandatory disambiguating note at every occurrence.

Term	Competing Senses Sharing the Space	Fence Required
家 (bayit, dynasty)	(a) 2 Samuel 7’s promised royal dynasty; (b) ordinary “household/family”; (c) Chinese clan-lineage continuity (宗族), historically maintained through ancestor rites and heir arrangements such as 过继 (already flagged under baseline adoption)	Fence: 家 in 2 Sam 7 = a dynasty God himself perpetuates by unconditional promise, not a clan-line kept alive by descendants’ ritual obligation to ancestors
家 vs 殿 (both render bayit)	Dynasty-house vs temple-house, deliberate Hebrew wordplay	Fence: cross-reference note required at every occurrence in ch.7 so the chapter’s central reversal (David wanted to build God a 殿; God instead builds David a 家) remains visible in Mandarin
永远 (olam)	(a) 2 Samuel 7’s unconditional covenant perpetuity; (b) 天命 (Mandate of Heaven), which is permanent only conditionally upon a ruling house’s continued virtue; (c) modern colloquial “forever” (e.g., romantic hyperbole in popular media), which trivializes durational weight	Fence: explicit contrast with 天命’s conditionality at every occurrence; avoid teaching contexts that let 永远 default to its colloquial-romantic register
罪 / 罪孽	(a) 2 Samuel’s specific covenant transgressions and accumulated guilt; (b) folk-Buddhist karmic retribution (报应), already flagged under baseline sin; (c) ordinary criminal-legal guilt	Fence: reinforce baseline’s existing caution — this is moral offense against a personal covenant God, not an impersonal karmic ledger or a merely legal infraction
圣洁 (qodesh/qadosh)	(a) baseline’s established moral/relational holiness (Romans register); (b) 2 Samuel 6’s additional ritual-holiness nuance (careful, prescribed handling of the ark)	Fence: note the dual nuance explicitly in ch.6 teaching so readers do not import a purely ritual-taboo reading (resembling Daoist ritual-purity categories, 清净) into every other use of 圣洁
君 / 国 / 国位	(a) 2 Samuel’s God-appointed shepherd-king; (b) the broader Chinese imperial-legitimacy vocabulary cluster (天子, 天命所归, 天下, 王朝) already fenced in baseline under called/kingdom_of_god	Fence: extend the baseline fence explicitly to these new terms — God’s choice of David is a personal, relational summons of one individual, not a cosmic endorsement of a ruling category
谋反 / 背叛 (qesher)	(a) Absalom’s and Sheba’s specific rebellions; (b) treason-against-the-emperor categories tied to loss of Mandate of Heaven in Chinese historical vocabulary; (c) baseline’s divine_calling caution against impersonal cosmic entitlement	Fence: explicit note that, unlike a revoked Mandate of Heaven, rebellion against David cannot revoke God’s unconditional covenant (7:15-16) — the throne’s security rests on God’s promise, not the king’s ongoing performance
神 (Elohim, generic) vs 耶和华 (YHWH, covenant name)	Both can be rendered “God”/“LORD” in English study notes, risking collapse into a single undifferentiated Mandarin term	Fence: consistent, disciplined use of 神 only for the generic noun and 耶和华 only for the covenant name throughout every lesson; never substitute one for the other even when the English source text uses “God” and “LORD” interchangeably in translation
主耶和华 vs 主 (baseline NT Lordship title)	David’s covenant-address “Sovereign LORD” (7:18-29) vs the NT confession “Jesus is Lord” (耶稣是主, Romans 10:9)	Fence: teach as theologically continuous (the same Lord) but functionally distinct usages — 主耶和华 is David’s prayer-address to the covenant God by name-plus-title; 耶稣是主 is the NT salvation confession. Do not treat the two occurrences as interchangeable liturgical formulas
安息 (common Chinese Christian idiom) vs נוּחַ (7:1, “rest from all his enemies”)	安息 in contemporary Chinese Christian usage is heavily associated with death/funeral language (安息主怀, “resting in the Lord’s bosom”)	Fence (newly identified): do NOT render 2 Samuel 7:1’s “the LORD had given him rest” as 安息 — a Mandarin reader would likely hear a funeral register and wrongly associate the verse with death. Render instead with 太平 or 平静 (contextual, living-military-rest sense), reserving 安息 for its established funerary/eschatological-rest usage elsewhere in the curriculum
耶和华的灵 (Spirit of the LORD, 23:2) vs 圣灵 (baseline NT term)	Baseline flags 圣灵 as Critical and forbids 灵 alone (ancestral/nature-spirit collision); 2 Samuel’s phrase uses 灵 within a fixed covenant-name compound rather than alone	Fence: 耶和华的灵 must be taught as continuous with the same divine Person later called 圣灵 in the NT (not a lesser or different “spirit”), while still respecting that 2 Samuel does not yet use the developed Trinitarian vocabulary

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5. Transliteration vs Paraphrase Decisions

Decision Type	Criterion	Examples	Rationale
Transliterate exactly, no gloss	Proper names with no embedded theological content, already fixed in CUV tradition	大卫, 扫罗, 拿单, 所罗门, 拔示巴, 乌利亚, 押沙龙, 米非波设, 押尼珥, 伊施波设, 约押	Consistency with established Chinese Bible-translation tradition; zero ambiguity risk as proper nouns
Transliterate + mandatory gloss	Proper names whose form is the theological content	耶底底亚 (Yedidyah), glossed “意即耶和华所爱的” (“meaning ‘beloved of the LORD’“)	Parallels baseline’s treatment of 阿爸 (Abba) — the transliteration alone would lose Nathan’s God-given sign of continuing chesed after David’s worst failure
Reuse established CUV compound (no new coinage)	Technical vocabulary already standardized in Chinese Bible tradition, even if new to this curriculum	约柜, 帐幕, 祭坛, 燔祭, 平安祭, 先知, 士师	These compounds already exist in the wider Chinese Bible-translation ecosystem; coining alternatives would fragment consistency with readers’ existing Bible literacy
Semantic paraphrase / new compound	Concepts with no existing single-word or fixed-compound Mandarin equivalent, requiring construction from baseline-approved elements	永约 (约 + 永远), 罪孽 (distinct from 罪), 受膏者 (distinct from 基督), 耶和华的话, 万军之耶和华	Necessary where no prior Chinese Christian technical term exists; built from elements already vetted in the baseline to preserve internal consistency
Fixed formula, verbatim, no paraphrase permitted	Doctrinally load-bearing sentences where any softening changes theological meaning	我得罪耶和华了 (12:13); 耶和华已经除掉你的罪 (12:13b); 刀剑必永不离开你的家 (12:10)	These are narrative hinge-points for entire doctrines (Repentance; Consequences); paraphrase risk is unacceptable
Retain literal idiom over smoothed abstraction	Vivid Hebrew imagery where flattening loses teaching value	拯救我的角 (“horn of my salvation,” 22:3)	Per baseline idiom-handling rule: preserve imagery with an explanatory note rather than replace with an abstract paraphrase like “my strong savior”
Do not transliterate; require semantic rendering	Terms where transliteration would produce meaningless or misleading loanwords	慈爱 (chesed — never “契塞德”); 受膏者 (never a phonetic loan)	These are functioning theological vocabulary, not proper nouns; transliteration would strip meaning entirely and could not carry doctrinal weight in a reading congregation

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6. Ranked Highest-Risk Ambiguities for 2 Samuel

Ranked by (a) doctrine risk tier, (b) centrality to the core passage (7:1-17), (c) severity of potential syncretism if mishandled.

1. עוֹלָם / 永远 (“forever”) vs 天命 (Mandate of Heaven)‘s conditional permanence — Critical. Core passage, vv.13, 16. The single most theologically load-bearing word in the curriculum’s anchor text; a Mandarin reader’s default cultural framework for “a ruling house’s permanence” is inherently conditional (revocable upon moral failure), which is the exact opposite of what the text asserts.

2. בַּיִת / 家 vs 殿 (dynasty-house vs temple-house wordplay) — Critical. Core passage, vv.5, 11, 13, 16. Without a mandatory cross-referencing note, the chapter’s central theological reversal — God builds David a house, rather than David building God a house — becomes structurally invisible in Mandarin, since the pun cannot be reproduced lexically.

3. חֶסֶד / 慈爱 vs 恩典 (NT charis) — Critical. Threads through chs. 7, 9, 22-23. Risk of either flattening two distinct-but-related biblical-theological categories into one word, or of readers importing the weaker “compassion/pity” sense (怜悯) and losing the covenant-loyalty force essential to “God’s Steadfast Love despite Human Failure.”

4. מְשִׁיחַ / 受膏者 vs 基督 (canonical development) and vs 弥勒 (Maitreya) — Critical. Threads through chs. 7, 16, 19, 22-23. Double collision risk: premature collapse into the NT technical title in one direction, or drift toward the Chinese Buddhist future-savior figure already flagged as forbidden in the baseline in the other.

5. אָב / בֵּן (covenantal father/son) vs 神的儿子 (Christ’s eternal Sonship) — Critical. Core passage, v.14, cited directly in Hebrews 1:5. The single highest-stakes Christological ambiguity in the book: reading Solomon’s covenantal sonship back into Christ’s unique eternal Sonship (or the reverse) are both serious doctrinal errors.

6. נוּחַ / “rest” (7:1) vs 安息’s funerary connotation — High. Core passage, opening verse. A newly identified, easily missed risk: rendering David’s living military rest with the term Chinese Christians reflexively associate with death would introduce an entirely unintended and jarring funerary overtone at the very trigger-point of the chapter’s narrative.

7. קֶשֶׁר / 谋反 vs Mandate-of-Heaven treason-legitimacy framing — High. Chs. 15-20. Real risk that readers interpret Absalom’s and Sheba’s rebellions as evidence the “mandate” to rule has passed from David, directly undermining the unconditional-covenant doctrine established in ch.7.

8. כִּסֵּא / 国位 (throne) limited to a merely dynastic-political reading — High. Core passage, v.13, 16; cf. Luke 1:32-33. Risk of teaching the throne promise as exhausted by Solomon’s historical reign, foreclosing its NT messianic fulfillment before that connection is properly introduced.

9. רוּחַ יהוה / 耶和华的灵 vs 圣灵 — personhood and continuity question — High. Ch. 23:2, newly identified gap. Risk of either treating David’s inspiration as a lesser, impersonal inspiration-force, or of anachronistically over-reading full Trinitarian personhood into an OT text before its progressive revelation is explained.

10. עָוֹן / 罪孽 vs folk-karmic 报应 — Medium. Core passage, v.14b; ch.12. Risk of readers hearing accumulated guilt as an automatically self-executing karmic mechanism rather than guilt addressed relationally by a personal God who both disciplines and forgives.

11. קֹדֶשׁ/קָדוֹשׁ / 圣洁’s dual moral/ritual nuance — Medium. Ch. 6 (Ark narrative). Risk of collapsing Uzzah’s death into a magical-taboo or feng-shui-adjacent warning rather than reverence toward a personal, holy God on his own revealed terms.

12. נָגִיד / 君 vs Mandate-of-Heaven ruler-legitimacy categories — Medium. Ch. 7:8, and throughout the kingship narrative. Lower-severity version of risk #7, but present at every occurrence of David’s royal title, not only during the rebellion narratives.

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7. Summary Recommendations Feeding Into Step 9 (Doctrine Risk Registry Update)

1. Register 耶和华的灵 (Spirit of the LORD) and the 太平/平静 fencing decision for נוּחַ (“rest”) as new entries before Phase 2 begins; both were surfaced only by this full-book gap analysis and are currently absent from the prior glossary and term registry.
2. Every Critical-tier ambiguity in §6 (items 1-5) requires mandatory human theologian review at every occurrence, consistent with baseline routing conventions for Critical-risk terms.
3. The בַּיִת (bayit) wordplay (item 2) and the עוֹלָם/天命 contrast (item 1) should be treated as the two highest-priority translator’s-note insertion points in the entire curriculum, given their concentration in the core passage.
4. All fencing notes identified in §5 must be carried forward into the doctrine risk registry’s mandarin_risk_notes fields and into the Phase 2 AI translation requirements’ escalation rules.