Bangla to Fijian: group reference may need more than singular versus plural
Two participants can require a separate reference
Mary Dalrymple’s number-marking overview documents four subject-pronoun numbers in Boumaa Fijian: singular, dual, paucal and plural. The dual refers to two participants, while the paucal concerns a small group. These are regional construction examples, not an assertion that every Fijian variety has identical forms.
A Bangla account naming two people should therefore not automatically be reduced to an unrestricted target plural. Conversely, the fact that two people are named does not prove that only those two belong to the group referred to later. Determine the actual membership of each source pronoun before choosing a target count. A larger group may contain those named people plus others established in the conversation.
The listener’s membership is another distinction
The Boumaa paradigm contrasts the inclusive dual etaru with the exclusive dual ’eirau. Both describe a pair, but they differ in whether the addressee belongs to that pair. A Bangla source group reference must therefore be interpreted through the interaction, rather than translated from its plural meaning alone.
A writer inviting the listener to go together and a writer reporting a trip with another person have different group memberships. The number two is not enough to distinguish them. The target should retain whether the reader is included in the action, since changing that relationship can turn a report into an apparent invitation or exclude somebody who was meant to participate.
A few people should not be fixed at exactly two
Dalrymple’s paradigm gives tou for a first-person inclusive paucal group. A Bangla reference to a small gathering can therefore differ from one about an exact pair, even where a broad intermediary gloss says we in both cases.
This is useful when a source paragraph moves from a conversation between two people to plans involving several friends. Track each group separately instead of carrying the initial pair interpretation through the whole passage. The target count belongs to the particular event’s participants, not to the number of named people anywhere in the text or the number of activities being planned.
Respect is not a substitute for counting the audience
The Bengali teaching grammar distinguishes ordinary tumi and respectful apni and corresponding verb forms. A source address to a respected person should not automatically be interpreted as a real group of listeners. Social relationship and participant count need separate analysis before any target number choice.
The source may also switch between addressing the listener and speaking about the writer’s own group. A target dual or paucal form can be grammatically coherent yet identify the wrong participants if those roles are confused. Establish who speaks, who listens and who joins each action, then use a documented Fijian construction appropriate to the intended variety. The Boumaa evidence demonstrates why a simple plural gloss can leave important source-to-target decisions unresolved.
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