Divehi to Fijian: my fish can mean food or merchandise
The target possessive can specify the intended use
Fritz describes Divehi personal possession through genitive forms, including standard aharenge for my. That source possessive identifies the owner. It does not by itself require a separate grammatical form distinguishing a person’s food from an item held for another purpose.
Hong’s Fijian study contrasts kequ ika with noqu ika. The first identifies fish for the speaker to eat, while the second can identify fish held as merchandise rather than for personal consumption. Both can receive an English gloss my fish, but their intended-use implications differ.
For an original Divehi message about fish being kept for sale, selecting the Fijian edible possession expression could incorrectly imply that the speaker intends to eat it. A translation can preserve the owner and the noun fish while changing the item’s role in the situation.
For a different source message setting aside fish for the speaker’s meal, a target neutral possession expression might fail to retain an intended food relationship that the context establishes. The source genitive alone is not the whole message: the activity, recipient and intended use can supply the necessary choice.
This is particularly relevant where a Divehi account follows the same fish from catching through selling or preparing it. A recurring source possessive need not force an unchanged Fijian relationship throughout the account. Translate the use established at each point rather than selecting the edible class solely because fish can be eaten.
Person versus non-person is not the same classification
Fritz’s Divehi case discussion uses animate and inanimate in a specifically person-versus-non-person sense. Those source labels should not be interpreted as a universal biological classification to be copied into Fijian. A living fish does not become a human possessor simply because it is animate in everyday terminology.
Hong distinguishes Fijian possession involving general items, food, drink and familiar relationships such as body parts and kin. He gives mequ bia for the speaker’s beer and ligaqu for the speaker’s hand. The difference concerns the possessed item and its relationship to the possessor, not a change of first-person owner.
For an original Divehi reference to the speaker’s drink and hand in the same account, preserve that one speaker across the target forms. Different Fijian possessive constructions do not establish two owners. They express different kinds of relationship involving the same person.
Conversely, using one familiar target first-person possessive indiscriminately can obscure the relation the context requires. The Divehi source can use a genitive-based owner expression while the target distributes ownership through several constructions. The visible source marker therefore does not determine one universal Fijian counterpart.
The translation should identify the owner, the possessed item and the intended relationship among them. For fish, that can include whether it is held for eating or trading; for other items, a different possession construction may be appropriate. Preserve those contextual meanings without importing Divehi’s person-related case categories into Fijian’s use-sensitive possessive system.
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